Merged World
by ekrolo2
Summary: A series of one-shots and multi-chapter stories chronicling a joint world combining elements from the DC and Marvel cinematic universes whether it's Odin battling the invasion of Steppenwolf or Turk running into Batman!
1. Woe to the Vanquished!

Before he was called king, ruler, protector, conqueror, butcher, desecrator, God of War and Wisdom, husband, father and Allfather, Odin Borson was but a prince of Asgard. Once, he was Odin, God of Logic and Thought, nicknamed Odin the Dispassionate.

A moniker lost to the annals of history and remembered by none but himself in the age of his children in the twilight years of his reign many centuries after this tale. The tale where the being who would shape the Nine Realms and beyond was born.

It began, as many great and terrible things do, with the coming of war.

Midgard, youngest and most savage of all the Nine Realms came under threat of annihilation from beings born of a cataclysmic clash of Gods from afar: the self-proclaimed New Gods of Apokalips. A twisted inverse of the Realm Eternal. Where Asgard shined in golden beauty, Apokalips was a blackened, eternally fire-spewing machine of war. All in service to a creature seeking no less than the subjugation of all living things through a fabled power known as the Anti-Life Equation.

Odin would not live to see whether it existed or not, but he and his aged father Bor would unknowingly delay it's discovery.

When the skies of Midgard were blackened by the arrival of Apokaliptian forces, and Yggdrasil itself quivered in fear, Asgard went to war, but not alone. Incredible beings celebrated as Gods before the Asgardians, joined them and brought armies of their own into the fray. Warrior women devoted to peace, masters of the sea and the disparate tribes of Man, of the Wolf, the Bear, and the Bird, the first masters of the mystic arts and even allies from other worlds who's wills could crack armies asunder.

Their titanic clash unfolded upon the scorched plains of Midgard. Countless men, women, and creatures of all sizes collided against one another to stem the tide of evil. It was in the midst of this madness not felt by an Asgardian since the culling of the Dark Elves, where Odin Borson was found.

Just a handful of centuries old, still but a boy in the eyes of his kin, the youth clad in the golden armor of his Realm was, as Midgardian's would later say, the calm eye of the storm.

While his allies shouted in triumph and terror, the beasts of Apokalips growled and clawed their way to victory, Odin Borson felt almost nothing.

Wielding a lesser Uru Oversword ceremonially wielded by the crown prince, he slashed, cleaved and stabbed his way through the myriad of beasts unfortunate enough to cross his path. All without a movement wasted.

Where other great warriors assembled there such as Antiope of the Amazon's leaped this way and there or sorcerer Agamotto conjured incredible displays of trickery and dimensional manipulation around the battlefield, Odin felled all in his path with a practiced ease in one, two or at most, three motions of his blade.

It did not matter if his foe was one of Apokalips' insect troops, their hounds the size of a Jotun or their blood-red machine men, the crown prince put them all to the sword with ruthless efficiency.

All without changing his expression, it did not visibly matter to him if his eyes fell on an ally torn apart or an enemy charging towards him, dispassion was Odin's response to all of this. For the young Asgardian knew anything else would mean his end.

The alternative cost him his older brothers, Vili and Ve who's legendary battle rage made them foolish enough to challenge the entire Jotun race to a battle while Odin was barely a boy. Nothing was left of them but the Oversword he wielded and a lesson they imparted to the third born son of Bor: control was key.

Yet for all his attempts of accomplishing absolute self-control, even the so-called dispassionate one always felt a spark burning inside his chest in the heat of battle.

It was stronger than an instinct but not quite a seductive voice whispering in the caverns of his mind. It was always there, and always he fought it back. There were even days he was able to fool himself into believing he'd conquered the temper passed on through his family.

He'd secretly feared his first true war would make it harder yet even here, amidst the greatest conflict he'd encountered thus far, Odin Borson's control held.

For a time.

In the 15th hour of battle, when the Green Lantern, Yalan Gur, after forming a device capable of unleashing thousands of spears to hack through the insectoid aerial forces of Apokalips found his concentration broken.

A being, five feet taller than Odin himself, leaped into the sky from the carnage of battle and with his fiery ax cut through the green construct in but a single swing. The son of Bor watched with a greatly masked awe and fear as Yalan Gur tried and failed to resist his enemy, suffering swing upon swing until the blade finally burned into his chest. His ring abandoned the battle immediately.

Steppenwolf, his murderer and leader of the Apokaliptian forces, a ghastly creature with grotesque facial features and a grey armor that looked almost forgettable next to the colorful garbs of his forces smiled as he observed it leave.

Not even when Zeus and Ares, beings called Gods by the men and women of Midgard assaulted him with lightning and blade did it falter. Ares, the God of War, who aided his father by driving an ax into Steppenwolf's armor momentarily brought him down to his knees. The Apokaliptian recovered mere moments later and with a simple twist of his wrist, snapped the weapon in half.

Were it not for Zeus' storm of lightning, his son would have been cut in two. For half a heartbeat, the lightning kept Steppenwolf at bay but even from across the battlefield, Odin saw his frightening smile and couldn't quite keep himself steady as the Apokaliptian grabbed his foe by the head and brought him down again, and again, and again through the scorched ground.

It was only Odin's father, Bor, who managed to delay Zeus' inevitable demise. With a mighty battle shout and a thrust from his spear, Gungnir, a flash of brilliant light struck Steppenwolf and enveloped him entirely.

So powerful was the blast that all surrounding creatures, ally, and foe alike, were devoured. However, Odin knew one such as Steppenwolf would not fall so easily and neither did Bor who immediately charged the enemy commander as soon as the blast dissipated.

Thus ensued a mighty clash of powers the likes of which Odin would remember in his nightmares for all his days. Steppenwolf, smiling and burning with the red flames of his homeworld and Bor, past his prime but powerful still, traded blows of such increasing force, such sky splitting, earth-rending, sea boiling power, that none dared join the fray.

It was in this midst of golden light and blood-red hellfire, that Odin for a few brief moments saw his father, not as the aged ruler of Asgardian with a grey beard and wrinkled skin, eyes that witnessed too much even for the long lifespan of their species.

In those scant few moments, Odin's self-control evaporated and in childlike awe, he saw Bor as a young man. Strong, at the apex of his strength and ready to challenge all of the Realms to battle and defeat them. It was said that exceptional beings such as them, in great moments of stress and battle, were able to transcend their abilities and burn as bright as a star.

But stars, as all things, burn out and so did Bor. Where once his slashes and thrusts were powerful and decisive, the shining glow from Gungnir and Bor himself slowly but surely faltered alongside his strength.

Odin would, as an older man who'd felt the coldest dispassion to the heights of fury many millennia from this event, curse himself for not staying true. If he had not fallen to an awe-filled stupor, he could have seen this outcome and changed so many things.

He did not. Too late did the son intervene in his fathers battle, too late save him or slay their enemy. Not swiftly enough did he succeed at carving a swath through his opposition. By the time Odin reached his father who was left kneeling and defenseless at the feet of the grinning Steppenwolf, the Apokaliptian's ax had already separated his head from his body.

Odin sank to his knees, his sword abandoned as he stared at the headless corpse of his father, the only family he had left. He didn't even get the chance to touch him one last time before his body dissolved itself into the Borforce.

His stupor might have lasted permanently, might have cost him his life and countless others. But it was one more act from the enemy which birthed the ruler of Asgard who would come to equal and surpass his reputation.

Steppenwolf laughed at the sigh of the distraught Odin and with it, unleashed the fury of all those born from Buri.

A shout mightier even then Bor's own burst from the chest of Odin and did not halt until the battle was done. Snatching Gungnir and wielding it alongside his Oversword, the crown prince of Asgard unleashed blow after blow at Steppenwolf, an unyielding series of motions all created with the intent of destroying the Apokaliptian.

Steppenwolf responded with the same confident smirk at first, but unlike Bor, Odin did not grow weaker, for the once called Borforce, now without a host, burned brighter and brighter in the chest of Odin alongside his power. The Apokaliptian's usual demeanor changed, to Odin's glee, fear had crept into his expression.

But it was not enough for the fledgling Allfather.

The Borforce reached its zenith and coursed through the youthful body of an Asgardian only entering his prime, Odin channeled it through the Oversword and with an overhead swing, shattered both of their weapons.

For a moment, a lull had entered the battle where Steppenwolf gawked at the stump of his once-weapon and Odin wolfishly grinned. Then, like his father before him thrust Gugngir forward and as a serpent would to its prey, allowed it's energies to devour Steppenwolf in the scorching light.

It was not until his armor was burned away and his already grey flesh was turned almost black did Odin give him respite.

Within the following hour, Steppenwolf was the sole survivor of his entire invasion force. From turned men to slaves to Parademons,... all were put to the sword on Odin's unquestioned orders. Their engines of war and enslavement erased from existence itself, all but one.

The strange device responsible for many of the invader's abilities, the Mother Box, was delivered to Odin as he stood above the near corpse of Steppenwolf.

With a simple press of a button, one of the booming portals delivering the invaders opened, this one leading back to their home, to help Steppenwolf return there where his misery was only just about to begin.

The most comforting words he would hear for the next millennia were Odin's words of warning for his master, Darkseid. That he and all like him would suffer a fate more terrible than ten thousand deaths if they should cross his paths again, that as long as he and his people lived, their designs upon the universe would never beat fruit.

Words he would find quite prophetic many millennia afterward when the forces of Apokalips and a madman would converge on Midgard and a new league, so similar yet so different from the first, would assemble to meet them.


	2. Sentinels and Knights Part 1

Growing up in Gotham City, you got used to a lot of things and not many of them good. Throw a dart and any one of them would make your life miserable: horrible weather all year long, run-down schools, barely enough jobs to go around and the occasional drive-by gang shooting. Still, it was much better nowadays crime-wise, after Batman's warning two years ago. The Freaks weren't running around anymore.

But one of the good things about Gotham, maybe the best, was everyone's love of football.

It didn't matter which side of Gotham you came from, what else you believed in or what color of your skin you had: the Gotham Knights football team got everyone together. Especially when they were up against their biggest rivals, the Metropolis Meteors, which was happening tonight at Gotham Stadium.

That was half the reason why both rookie and senior police officers, George Keaton and Kyle Wagner were grinning as they made the morning patrol through the Gotham Village. One of the oldest and wealthiest neighborhoods of the city. It left them free to go to the big game that night while some other pair of poor shmucks would deal with the post-game party. Or riot if the home team lost.

They'd never live to know either way. A stray bolt of blue energy cut through the doors of a nearby bank and blew them up along with their car.

* * *

"Morning Director Fury."

Steve heard his footsteps the second his feet touched the ground, even though the ruckus of people ordering, waitresses chatting and kids playing all over the diner. When they weren't busy talking about Captain America showing up in their neck of the woods. Most people probably didn't know this, but everyone had a sort of rhythm to their walking. Subtle little nuances that made even soldiers marching together leave a distinct sound Steve found useful when sneaking around, or when he thought someone was sneaking up on him.

A practice Steve made a habit of using these last few weeks as he traveled cross country, seeing the new America, heck, America period for the first time in his life. Before they parted after the Battle of New York, Fury advised him to keep on guard and Steve did just that. If he hadn't, someone would've made off with his shield almost immediately.

He put the menu down and saw Fury standing next to his table, half-smirking at him. Steve couldn't help but find it funny, seeing him, director of a spy agency in a black suit and scary eye patch standing in a Louisiana diner. It sounded like a bad joke Tony would make, or rather, will make when Steve tells him about him sometime.

"Mind if I sit down?" He said while sitting down. If Steve's appearance made everyone excited, then the hushed whispers of him apparently inviting a guest made the room a powder keg ready to blow.

"C-can I get you fellas anythin'?" The waitress, a cute looking redhead Steve's... normal age asked them, not quite managing to keep from staring at him.

"Bacon and eggs for me, ma'am, thank you."

"Just coffee."

She wrote it down and backed away to the kitchen, almost knocking down her co-worker for watching Steve over her surroundings.

"How've you been, Cap?"

"A lot better then I was before New York, oddly enough," Steve answered him honestly. The first months of his return were spent either exhausting himself in an old gym or half-heartedly catching up on the past few decades in an apartment S.H.I.E.L.D. had provided for him. "Who knew it'd take another war for me to get out of that apartment you set up for me?"

"Conflict tends to give us a new perspective, makes us see things a little differently."

Steve nodded at the truth of that. "And I'm assuming another one's about to start?"

Fury's half-smirk vanished, replaced by a grim look that probably made his friends and enemies both scared of him. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out one of those phones they had nowadays and slid it over to Steve.

It was playing something, footage, if Steve remembered right, from inside a bank. It looked normal at first, people going about their business, nothing out of the ordinary. Soon enough, a group of men, about 10 of them, stormed into it out of nowhere and took the guards out with tubbed guns.

The rest of the people there either went down on the ground or held their hands up. Most of the group kept the people inside under control while a single man, holding a duffle bag big enough for a rocket launcher, went to the vault and pulled something out of the bag.

Steve recognized it immediately, everyone on the planet would.

"That's-"

"Chitauri weaponry," Fury confirmed it as if he really needed to. "Operational too."

The gun capable of blowing cars apart did just that to the bank vault, even back in the old days, it would take explosives to do something like it. Now? With who knows how many advancements made? It must've been easier to just get their hands on codes. Unless you had a portable alien gun to blow it to pieces.

With the vault blown to pieces, the crooks went inside and stole as much as they could before the gunner started firing off into the street. The footage switched to that, showing a police car get blown up from the first shot, more along with blown-up shops followed it.

"When did this happen?" Steve leaned back into his seat, handing the phone over to Fury.

"Yesterday morning in Gotham City."

"Gotham?" Steve had heard a little about it, mostly through the Wayne Enterprises and Stark Industries rivalry Howard had talked his ear off about during their time together.

"A real nasty place with one of the highest crime rates in the whole US of A. The kind where it's expected for your kids to find a dead body on the street on the way to school."

"What!? How is that possible?" Steve stared at the man across from him.

"Generations of slowly accumulating corruption on the higher level causing increased levels of poverty to everyone lower on the food chain. Throw in a dozen crime families setting up shop, the police force rotting away and the deaths of many, good hard working people trying to fight that and you get a mess like Gotham city. If it wasn't for The Batman, believe me, it'd be much, much worse."

"The Batman?"

"Back in the early 90s, a good 15 years before Tony became Iron Man, the worlds first superhero after you and Wonder Woman showed up: The Batman of Gotham City. The city had been at the mercy of goons like Carmine Falcone and his mobster buddies for years by then, ever since Thomas and Martha Wayne were gunned down in Crime Alley. The criminal element, with no one to fight them off, consolidated an incredible amount of power not just there, but even as high up as Washington D.C.

"Batman tore all of that down, the mob couldn't threaten or bribe or blackmail him like the rest since they had no idea who he was and they sure as hell couldn't kill him. Piece by piece, he, Jim Gordon from the GCPD and then-District Attorney Harvey Dent ripped the mob to pieces over there in just over a year. Gotham City looked like it might actually go someplace but down for the first time in years."

"He's enhanced?"

"Not in the least," Fury's half smirked came back when he noticed Steve's eyes widen. "He's no super soldier Cap, but he's as close to one as you can get with years of training and dedication. Combine that with a vast assortment of military-grade equipment and vehicles and you've basically got a one-man army."

"But if this Batman's so effective, how is Gotham still having such a rough time? Why wasn't he listened as a candidate for the Avengers Initiative?"

Fury's expression softened momentarily and imperceptibly but Steve couldn't for the life of him figure out what he was seeing crack the man's grim demeanor. Nervousness? Grief? Regret?

"Let's just say..." Fury sighed. "I made a mistake a long time ago with Batman, the kind that's ensured he and I will never be in the same room together that doesn't involve him caving my skull in."

"And anyone else from S.H.I.E.L.D I'm guessing, which is why you want me to go there."

"That's right, though you've been under our care and watch for almost a year now, you're not a part of the organization in an official capacity. That alone makes you the only person I can trust this to who won't have to worry about finding these crooks and Batman."

"There's Wonder Woman and Superman," Steve pointed out.

"Superman's heart is in the right place but he's still finding himself out there, plus his and Di's abilities would mean a probable escalation the likes of which I'd prefer to avoid."

 _There's something he's not telling me,_ the super soldier noticed another imperceptible shift with Fury, a knowing look in his eye that he couldn't figure out just like before. Not that it changed anything, weapons of this scale being used by anyone, least of all crooks, was a threat to every decent person anywhere, not just Gotham. They had to be stopped as soon as possible.

"Guess I'll be missing breakfast," He left his seat, leaving two hundred dollars on the table as he and Fury exited the diner. Already, the operatives alongside Fury had secured his belongings and motorcycle into the back of a black van. Turning towards the Director, he asked. "How fast can you get me to Gotham?"

"5 to 6 hours. More than enough time for you to read up on everything else you need to know and get there when night falls. That's when he'll be out hunting."


	3. Sentinels and Knights Part 2

Just as Fury said, the helicopter transport got Steve within range of Gotham City by late afternoon. Besides the constant rotator blade spinning and the occasional chatter between himself and the pilot, the super soldier spent the trip reading up on all things Gotham and Batman.

The files conveniently printed out in neat paper stacks, painted a pretty bleak picture of a city that couldn't catch a break.

Organized crime, already present since the turn of the old century, got a whole lot worse when two crime bosses established themselves after WW2: Vincent Falcone and Luigi Maroni. Through the rest of the 40s then the 50s and 60s, they cut a bloody swath throughout Gotham. The old families of Gotham who founded the city centuries back tried to fight it. But the Crowne family folded, the Dumas sole heir exiled himself overseas while the Kane, Elliot and Wayne families almost got snuffed out thanks to various family tragedies.

The Wayne's murder was the last straw.

With them more or less gone and less principled men taking over their business', Carmine "The Roman" Falcone, son of Vincent Falcone became don of the city, ruling it for the next 20 something years with an iron fist. If the information here was as accurate as Steve thought it was, Falcone spread his influence over Gotham in a way that'd make H.Y.D.R.A. proud. Nobody from the mayor to a regular beat cop was safe from him or his associates. Everyone was too afraid to fight back.

Until Batman.

From the police and news reports compiled, he first appeared sometime in April 1993, attacking muggers, low-level mob enforces and crooked cops at first. They didn't take him too seriously, until May 19th. The night Batman invaded a dinner party hosted at one of Falcone's old estates on the city outskirts, where he declared war on him and everyone who ever helped him drag Gotham through the mud.

On June 7th, he made national news when he took down a special police force called S.W.A.T. team of eighteen men by himself before a swarm of bats showed up to help him sneak away.

 _He's got a flair for the dramatic._ Steve thought when he read that.

The manhunt for Batman only intensified after that with several suspects listed such as Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent but his true identity remains a mystery to this day, 19 years later. By the end of '93, an ex-Chicago cop named James Gordon got promoted to Captain, giving Batman his first ally in an official capacity. For a time, things seemed to get better with the mob being taken down piece by piece, Gotham looked like it had a chance.

Then Joker showed up for the first time.

He was the original Gotham Freak as they came to be known and tried to turn the water supply into raspberry jelly because, as he put it, why not? Steve didn't even want to think how **that** was supposed to work. Other so-called super criminals like him followed suit, sometimes just crooks with gimmicks while the rest were complete psychopaths racking up a sickening body count each.

Some of them got help like Victor Freeze, Basil Karlo, and Kirk Langstrom, others started out bad and stayed that way. Harvey Dent, one of the men most to thank for putting away Falcone was horribly scared and turned into one of the Freaks, Two-Face. Joker changed too, starting out as a grand scale prankster then turning into a makeshift mob boss then vanishing after his presumed death only to come back as a citywide, mass murdering terrorist.

Throughout all this, Steve noticed a marked shift with Batman. From the start, fear and intimidation tactics were par for the course with him, but gradually, as his enemies became worse, Batman himself seemed to grow more violent. Increasing reports detailed him leaving criminals in worse and worse shape, some so badly beaten they're still crippled to this very day.

The incident that made even Steve's war blood run cold was a particular incident two years ago. During his later career, Batman had gotten a partner called Robin to help him out. For a while, the crime rates seemed to drop with two of them around, but then Robin vanished one night and Batman spent the next three weeks practically ripping Gotham to pieces to try and find him.

A solid number wasn't determined, but from what Steve could see, he hospitalized between 80 and 130 known criminals during that time along with several of the super crooks. The part that put the former soldier off was the last piece of footage Fury provided for him alongside second and third-rate sources showing how Batman fought.

Dubbed "The Warning" it showed the Joker with two black eyes, most of his teeth either broken or punched out as he lied on the floor, his arms and legs snapped into unnatural angles. It was broadcast on every single television, computer and cellphone in Gotham, lasting only a minute, most of it was dedicated to just staring at the broken Joker until Batman talked to the camera at the very end. The only thing he said was, "This is what I'll do to you if you break the law."

Gotham's crime rate plummeted and stayed down for the next year and a half before steadily growing back up again. The Joker is, to this very day, still in a coma. Robin was never seen again.

He was thankful to get out of the helicopter, after spending hours on end watching an endless cycle of pain and misery repeat itself over and over again left him feeling grim, tired and worst of all, very conflicted. Part of him wanted to strike out at Batman just as much as the criminals making life in Gotham miserable. Using fear and torture to try and control people, to force them into submission was something that offended Steve to his very core. It reminded him far too much of the bullies of his youth, and the Nazi's and H.Y.D.R.A. forces he helped bring down decades ago.

On the other hand, the Batman seemed to be the only one capable of fighting back what was happening there. Everyone else had given up on Gotham years ago, surely if Fury wanted to, he could have done something, anything, to help, the information here proved he must have known what was going on, why not help? Even at his worst, this Batman had a rule he never seemed to break: he never killed anyone. No matter who he faced, no matter how much they might have had it coming, this sole thing stuck out to Steve as he read through the vast assortment of information given to him.

But did that excuse him potentially stooping to his enemies level in other ways? Was there no other way to help this place?

"Cap got a call for you! It's Director Fury!" The pilot asked as they began their final approach to the city. As he rose up to walk over to him, Steve got his first look at Gotham itself from the cockpit. From this far away, high in the sky and bathed in beautiful summer sunlight, you'd never think it was any different from other places like New York or Chicago with its massive skyscrapers that seemed to go on forever. From up there, if you didn't know any better, you might call it an achievement.

"Thanks, what've you got for me, sir?"

"Bad news Cap," Fury's grim voice cut through the rotor blade noise like an explosion through a gunfight. "Two more banks were hit in the past couple of hours, same as the one yesterday. A dozen people dead and twice that hurt. That's not even mentioning the 300 million dollars they've racked up in just under 24 hours."

 _Damn it..._ "Do we have any new leads, anything to help me nail these guys?"

"Unfortunately no, whoever these guys are, they aren't half-assing this operation, they know where to hit and more importantly, get out without leaving any evidence."

"Somebody must know where to find these guys. I can't believe that in a group of ten people there isn't even one of them who's not bragging about getting away with that much money. Back in my day, they'd practically make a party if they managed to scam someone with a stolen carpet."

"Such is the law of keeping a secret, the more people know about it, the higher chance it'll get out. It's not anything close to a good lead but you don't have much choice but crack some skulls until someone points you the right way."

"And if Batman takes it too far?" Steve wondered as vivid descriptions of his later interrogations sprang to mind.

"Then I ask that you consider things carefully," Fury's tone managed to sound even grimmer than usual. "You might not agree with all his methods, but Batman gets results and in Gotham, that's a unique quality for someone on the right side. Besides, nobody knows the Gotham underworld the way he does, so unless you want this to drag out, you don't have much choice but to rely on whatever help Batman's willing to give you."

Steve reluctantly conceded Fury's point. "Then I guess I'll head to Commissioner Gordon tonight. From what I've read, short of breaking the law, that's the fastest way to get to this Batman."

"Till then, keep a low profile, get to know the lay of the land. Just make sure you're at the GCPD by nine, that's when I'll have someone deliver your suit and shield for you."

 _Which gives me five hours to see just how bad Gotham is for myself._ "Understood sir, I'll nail the bastards before they hurt anyone else."

"For all our sakes, let's hope you do. Keep the phone, it'll help us stay in touch."

With that, Fury ended the call, allowing the super soldier from Brooklyn a few more uninterrupted minutes to just look at Gotham before the copter touched down at the outskirts. Taking his motorcycle out of the back and thanking the pilot for getting him there, Steve put on his sunglasses and Los Angeles Dodgers cap on and made his way into the city.

Crossing in over the Robert Kane Memorial Bridge, Steve had gotten a much closer look at the city from the ground level as he slowly made progress through the afternoon traffic jam. From there, the city didn't shine quite like it did just a few minutes earlier from the sky. The skyscrapers, instead of being brightened by the sun, looked dark and foreboding as if they were cast in shadows nothing could get rid of.

The first neighborhood he visited was Old Gotham and at first glance, it put him at ease. Being the starting point from where the rest of the place was built from, this section of the city didn't see any tearing down or new construction done since the 1950s. If any modernization was done, it happened in bits and pieces here and there or inside people's homes, the whole place had a vintage feel to it with its old shop signs, blocky buildings. It reminded him of home.

Steve had heard that a lot of cities purposefully left parts of themselves like this, for historical preservation and of course, for tourist traps but he doubted any place had it all over the place like Gotham. No matter where he went through the first few hours, there was something... old everywhere. No matter where he drove, what he stopped to look at, he found a lot of things that reminded him of old days everywhere, even the newest, most modern buildings seemed to age twenty years just by being there.

Unlike Old Gotham, however, where he found it charming, the way it felt through the rest of the city put him on edge. He was no expert on architecture, but the way the buildings seemed to almost... twist around, how he found gargoyles built all over the place, not just near churches or cathedrals, how the alleys looked less like place you walked through and more like some dark, damp cave instantly reminded Steve of those old horror stories, EC Comics he read back then.

Then there were the people and this is where Gotham's... atmosphere was almost tangible for him. No matter where he looked or who, the old super soldier saw tension and fear in the way people went about their business. They way they took in their surroundings by constantly looking over their backs or how they kept an unnatural distance from one another whenever they spoke to anyone. But it wasn't a fresh kind of fear you'd expect from people under attack by alien super weapon using criminals. It too made him think back to the war, back when he infiltrated enemy territory and saw how people lived in the occupied territories.

These people, much like those before them, were always afraid, but they'd live with it and the possibility of disaster so long, they'd made it almost a natural part of their everyday lives and they didn't even know it. This was fear when it became a practiced ease.

As the hours went by and the got smaller and smaller, the foreboding Steve felt was practically palpable as night began to fall. The bizarre way the buildings seemed to have put together, the way it looked like it suffered from a blackout despite thousands of lights all over the place and the unnatural way the people lived only enhanced the feeling of this place feeling... off. Not entirely wrong, he couldn't admit that much but something definitely oppressive.

He felt pretty relieved by the time the car Fury told him about arrived with his shield and a suitcase carrying his new suit inside. It meant he could get down to business and hopefully do some good for this poor place. After so much doom and gloom, seeing almost the whole department, even the crooks there, practically stop dead when he all walked in was a welcome change.

"Evening ma'am," He greeted the woman at the reception with a smile. "I'm Steve Rogers and I've come here to speak with Commissioner Gordon about the recent bank robberies here. Could you help get me in contact with him?"

The woman gawked at him for a little while longer before she and the rest of the place slowly unfroze themselves. "O-oh course! J-just gimme a second here."

She fumbled around for the phone, knocking over papers and important look files in a mad scramble to get to the phone pretty obviously put right next to her. Before he pointed that out, she seemed to remember that and made the call. One back and forth between her and the Commissioner on the other end, followed by her sending him a photo of Steve standing there to prove it later, the WW2 vet finally got a chance to see James Gordon, Batman's confidante in the G.C.P.D. in person as he walked into the lobby.

As a companion piece to the vast Batman file, Gordon received one as well, born in 1957 to Jonathan Kimble Gordon, a WW2 vet who saw most of his action during the Pacific theatre, James Gordon spent a pretty normal childhood living in Chicago where he joined the police department after dropping out of college. Apparently, he'd come to blows there with the higher ups concerning corruption within the force caused by Carmine Falcone's sister, Carla Viti, last head of the extinct Viti crime family.

First Lieutenant, then Captain and then Commissioner just in his first three years here, Gordon had become one of the city's most respect individuals and a known close ally of Batman'. Though he was 55 years old, the sobering effect he had on the room was almost tangible, dimming a lot of the ruckus Steve had caused when he entered, all just by looking across the room until his eyes finally landed on the super soldier.

Then, after staring for a few seconds was trying to keep that calm composure from breaking apart in front of every there. "Captain Rogers," He welcomed Steve with a nod and a handshake, his voice sounding remarkably casual even as his eyes looked big enough to pop out of their sockets. "It's an honor to meet you!"

"Likewise Commissioner."

"Sorry about not coming here sooner, it just-"

"Sounded pretty unbelievable, I know, I heard. " Steve gave a disarming smile which seemed to make Gordon even more anxious if the way his heart rate pounding against his chest was any indication.

He shook Steve's hand just a few seconds longer than normal before glancing down and hastily pulling it back. "Uh, please! Follow me, we can talk more without so many prying eyes and ears."

With a silent acknowledgment, the WW2 vet followed him through the halls of the G.C.P.D. building. It, just like the rest of Gotham, had a strange way of making even the new seem old and worn. Steve could see dozens of pieces of high tech machinery sprawled all across the place from computers to cell phones to lights, built on old tiled floors with pieces of aging wood connecting all of it this way and that. A few minutes later and with more than a few surprised stares following them, they reached Gordon's office on the upper floor.

It was a humble place with creaking old floorboards, two decks one on the front with a computer, family picture and one on the back where Steve noticed some doughnuts and a coffee machine. Three windows gave Gordon an overview of the ins and outs of the building with binds on all of them.

"Please, make yourself comfortable," Gordon pulled a spare chair for him. "I'd offer you some coffee, but having Captain America die of a heart attack in my office sounds like it'd be bad luck."

Steve grinned as he sat down. "Can't be worse than some of the booze the guys back in the day used to make to pass the time."

"Yeah, my old man said something to that effect," He paused to look at the shield, lulling the conversation for a bit. "I hope I'm not being presumptuous, it's just-"

"Help yourself," Handing it out, Gordon took the shield with a careful reverence, running his hand against it and weighing it back and forth in the air. Another pause later, he started chuckling softly.

"Another thing my dad used to say is that he saw you in action on Okinawa, that you tossed this at an incoming Japanese plane and cut it right in half," Gordon laughed again. "I knew he was full of crap later but it makes for a good kid story."

Though there were talks about him being transferred over there once Europe was liberated, Steve had never set foot there.

"If it makes you feel any better, I did cut a talk in half."

Gordon stopped again and stared at him for any sign of a joke, despite not finding any, he laughed again. "What I wouldn't give to see that."

Handing the shield back, Gordon sat behind the desk and with a deliberate slowness, sat down in the creaking old chair. The nervousness and excitement from before seemed to drain out of him, replaced by a resigned grimness. "But given recent events, I might just see you fight anyway."

"Unfortunately you just might," Steve replied evenly. "But if I can nail these guys fast, no one else has to die or get hurt."

"And you need my friends help to do that."

The Super Soldier nodded, Gordon sighed.

"He might not want to help you. I've known him for a very long time and he can be... difficult when it comes to accepting help from anyone outside."

"Which is why I'm counting on you to help me, Commissioner" Steve replied without hesitation. "The weapons these men carry are dangerous, even to me, and much more so to other people. All of us know that and they can't be allowed to stay in the hands of crooks. If Batman refuses my offer for whatever reason? Fine, doesn't change the fact I'll be going after these guys no matter what."

Gordon smiled at that. "You're just as headstrong as he is. Too bad I don't know if that'll help or ruin your chances of getting him to agree," Rising out of his chair, he took a thick looking brown coat and hat off a rack. "I'll go set up the signal if you've got to get changed or make any preparations, nows the time. Just take a left to the fire escape door and keep going up after you're done."

A moment later, Gordon was gone and Steve wasted no time in getting ready. Opening the briefcase he noticed... a suit inside. In many ways, it looked like his outfit from New York. Except, the blue was a few shades darker, almost gray, the helmet was completely separate from the neck and the gauntlets were replaced by a pair of brown, fingerless gloves.

 _Guess Fury thought the old outfit was too bright for night ops._ Seeing wisdom in the choice, Steve hastily put the clothes on, conscious of the fact someone might try to take a peek at him and emerged from the office fully suited up, his regular clothing left inside the briefcase on Gordon's desk while the shield was strapped to his back. With a fast step, Steve climbed the several flights of stairs, reaching the rooftop just-in-time to see a massive, bright light suddenly shoot out from it.

Blinking the sudden flash away, the soldier saw Gordon standing next to a massive searchlight, staring up into the night sky. Steve looked in the same direction and there, hanging over all of Gotham like a giant monster ready to come down any second was the shape of a gargantuan black bat. His gaze shifted over to Gotham beneath them and suddenly, in that mix of shadows and pure blackness he found so unnerving earlier, there was something else there. Seeing the bright lights cut through the pitch black around them...

"Quite a view, isn't it?" Gordon asked as he walked up to the edge. "You should see it come Christmas time, the snow makes it even better."

Steve absently nodded and kept watching, trying to reconcile the enigma that was Gotham city. How could a place look so promising at first, lose absolutely all of its appeal then, at night of all times when the worst crime was reported to happen, had a sort of rugged, twisted beauty of its own all over again? Before he could ponder about this any more, Steve suddenly heard something thump behind them and spun around to find the cause.

 _When did he-_ There, standing just on the periphery of the searching light he stood, tall and imposing, with a body that seemed impossibly huge to move as quietly as it just did. From the side of his face he could make out, he had a firm, thin-lipped jaw and grim eyes that could give Fury a run for his money.

"Jim," He spoke with a distorted voice that seemed simultaneously loud and soft. Then his eyes settled on Steve. "Captain America."

The Super Soldier nodded, his eyes unflinchingly meeting the vigilante's. "Batman."


	4. Sentinels and Knights Part 3

Growing up through the 70s and 80s, Bruce Wayne's tastes in entertainment were different from his peers.

While he could enjoy the likes of Flash Gordon and Star Wars as any other boy his age did, his true passion for films lied with old black and white serials. Productions from a bygone era even by then, cruder, simpler but somehow more charming than the flash and spectacle of contemporary films. He attributed this to his father's influence who made it a point to have the Lone Ranger and Zorro among the first film experiences Bruce would ever experience. Though they remained personnel favorites, series such as the Grey Ghost captured his imagination, presenting a crime-ridden city saved by one man and his pursuit of justice. Though he didn't know it until many years later, he attributed this fascination with the crime escalation rampant in Gotham his parents, somewhat successfully tried to keep him in the dark about.

But even as Bruce loved them, he knew they were make-believe, impossible stories about impossible men doing impossible things. Captain America and Wonder Woman were real. Hidden in his father's private collection were old propaganda films about them and their WW2 exploits, how they took on and defeated entire squadrons of soldiers by themselves. Liberating villages, cleaving tanks in half and sending the enemy into frightened retreats. All while performing the sorts of impossible things right out of a Zoro and Grey Ghost story, except even more incredible.

Of the two, Captain America was Bruce's favorite as there was more known about him in comparison to his more mysterious partner. Born a simple, fragile man with a slew of borderline crippling health issues, Steve Rogers' bravery made him the recipient of an incredible and lost formula, transforming him into one of the first superheroes the world had ever seen. A simple man from Brooklyn, rejected from the army numerous times and with no great prospects became a legend for generations to come. How could a child not fall in love with a story like that?

It's for this reason that Batman, a veteran of his own nearing 20-year long war, felt sentimental and foolish in a way he hasn't since meeting and helping Simon Trent rebuild his life a decade prior. Captain America himself, found and brought back to life was standing in front of him. A child's hero was right there and just by standing near him, exuded the same strength and wonder the propaganda films couldn't hope to capture.

He was almost disappointed by the fact he couldn't enjoy this feeling a little while longer. But, it wouldn't be Gotham if something promising wasn't stamped out.

"Fury sent you," He stated more than axed, already feeling an old bitterness for the man-in-question wash over him. Batman wondered just how much Steve Rogers knew about that sordid affair.

"He did," Rogers nodded again. "I don't know all the details, but I know the two of you have an understanding. Nobody from S.H.I.E.L.D. can come to Gotham or else you'll do something."

 _So he sends you as a loophole._ Batman concluded quickly, confirming his assumption as he made his way to the signal and caught his first glimpse of the living legend. Though he was loathed to admit it, Fury had technically kept his word as per their agreement. He'd made it a point to keep a bug inside the agency running for years on end and Captain America becoming a member of it would have certainly made a blip on his radar.

This didn't bother him as much as Fury's subtle manipulation did. He knew who Batman was under the mask, and though their deal ensured that information never left his head lest all of S.H.I.E.L.D. collapsed, and it would have been easy for one of his agents to slither through his personal effects over the dozens of parties he used to host in Wayne Manor and figure out Bruce Wayne's hero worship of Captain America.

No, what bothered him most was the fact he respected the whole damn plan and the fact he would have to play into it.

"Tell me, how much of that do you know?"

"Just that. When I tried to ask for more, he wouldn't tell me, said he was already breaking the terms just by mentioning it to me."

Using his own skills at detecting lies such as subtle body movements, eye dilation and such alongside the computer built into his cowl capable of following a person's heart rate from across a whole room, Batman couldn't find any lies there. Captain America was either an incredible liar on par with himself or the most guileless man he'd ever seen. He wondered if Rogers would have agreed to this mission if he knew all the details, and a small part of him hoped the answer was yes.

"So the guns, they're really from the aliens that attacked New York?" Gordon spoke up, no doubt sensing the tension building up and wanting to divert it into something more productive.

"Unfortunately so, sir and not just taken off the streets either. Somehow, in just this short amount of time, these inert weapons have been made operational. Nobody, not even the scientists at S.H.I.E.L.D. or Stark have pulled that off."

 _Not even I've done it._ Though scant, he'd managed to get his hands on some Chitauri contraband off the market but so far, nothing he or Alfred did could make them work. Acquiring a functioning piece of that equipment would prove useful in the future when more alien freaks decide to attack closer to Gotham next time.

"Whoever these men are, they have no connection to the upper-level gun runners like Cobblepot or Black Mask."

"You're sure about that?" Gordon asked him.

"Penguin is too preoccupied worrying about his terminal lung cancer, spending his fortunes on any wonder drug to help save him. Sionis is working on setting a bounty on whoever finds these men. One of the banks they attacked this morning had hundreds of thousands of his own money stolen."

"How do you know that?" Rogers asked him.

"I paid them a visit last night," Batman answered matter of factly, noticing the Captain's neutral expression turn sour as his eyes imperceptibly narrowed at him. It seemed that Fury didn't shy away from revealing his method of doing things. "I intend to hit the lower end of the food chain tonight."

"I'll get more of my people out on patrol then," Gordon interjected again. "Hopefully, between all of us here, we can catch these bastards tonight without anyone else getting hurt."

"Just make sure they don't engage," Rogers cautioned. "Take it from someone who knows, you don't want to get hit by what these guys are firing."

"We do our jobs, they won't even get close to them." Deciding that now was not the time leave Jim hanging or else risk Captain America making a mess by heading out on his own, Batman walked briskly to the edge of the building halting only momentarily to look back at them. "Follow me."

With one swift motion, he unclipped his grapnel gun from his built and fired it towards a neighboring structure a few stories taller than the G.C.P.D. headquarters, propelling himself into the air. He was sent soaring across the street at a 45-degree angle and passed over it entirely to the next block of buildings. The second he touched down on the rooftop but before he fired again, a loud thud and grunt resounded from his left. Batman turned just in time to see the end of Captain America leap across the entire street and firm landing.

"Where are we going?" He asked as though it was the most normal thing in the world. It took Batman considerable effort not to look surprised.

"You'll know when we get there," Wanting to test his... partner, Batman grappled again, mixing this with bouts of gliding across the stony rooftops of Gotham city halting only momentarily to see if Rogers was still keeping up. Though he lacked any noticeable equipment save his famous shield, Captain America more than kept pace with him. Whenever Batman landed, the super soldier was only half a second behind him, continuing his extraordinary practice of leaping across entire city blocks.

The Gotham vigilante was under no illusions about his own, slight advantage. If Rogers was given the same equipment and training as him, he would no doubt leave Batman in the dust in a race across the city's rooftops. Even lacking the knowledge of the city's various intricacies and sporting decidedly rudimentary skills at traversing his surroundings, Rogers sheer power and speed was incredible. The only one who even began to compare to him was Slade, not surprising given the circumstances behind Deathstroke's own enhanced abilities.

A stray thought crossed Batman's mind, how familiar this felt to something from what felt like a lifetime ago. The feeling put him in an even fouler mood than anything to do with Fury. Putting the feeling aside, he focused on the fact Rogers was no doubt scrutinizing him as well, taking note of his movements and gear. Captain America may not be able to lie well, but that didn't make him stupid or lacking in cunning.

They'd reached the West Side of Gotham in under 15 minutes, halting just at the edge of the area of their first, and hopefully last, source of information. The area was run down as ever with burnt out cars littering the ground, street lamps barely functioning and buildings that could only be described as concrete shanty towns stacked on top of one another.

"God," Rogers said as he leaned over the edge, scanning the sight ahead of them. "How can people live like this?"

The tone of his voice reminded Batman of a rookie cop at his first murder scene. Of a man only then grasping what he was in store for with Gotham City. To hear that from Captain America, World War 2 veteran of all places felt... disconcerting. Batman knew he'd seen far worse than that during mankinds bloodiest war, but perhaps that was precisely what shocked him? This was a supposedly modern, civilized time.

"We're heading over there," At the far end of the northern street, shining against the blackness he pointed towards an old sign just underneath a street lamp saying Manny's Meat and Fish. "The stomping ground of an old acquaintance of mine, Killer Croc."

"Waylon Jones, right?" Captain America continued staring at West End. "Murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault,... cannibalism..."

The feeling of familiarity came back, harder this time around, he'd had this conversation with someone else before...

"Jones was born with a genetic defect, it made him a target of abuse by everyone, including his aunt who was incidentally the first person he'd ever killed," Batman began to account, wondering why as Rogers clearly knew all of this already. "He managed to find some semblance of family in a circus before it was burned to the ground with him as the sole survivor. The perpetrators were his next victims."

"And they've never been able to cure him," Rogers stated with a deflated voice, his eyes dropping and shoulders slumping as he let out a long, suffering breath. Observing him, Batman noted that this must've been the man between the films, between the missions, particularly the worst ones. It eerily mirrored his own, final failed attempt at curing Jones. One which cemented the fact he would never get a chance at getting better, not like Karlo or Victor did.

Gathering these feelings into his chest, Batman let out a barely audible breath of his own and as per his old training, let most of them flow out of him. Reaching for his belt, he prepared to grapple once again. "Somethings can't be fixed."


	5. Sentinels and Knights Part 4

"One cannot always strike his enemies where they lie. But you can always draw them to where you so desire."

Kirigi's words from over 20 years ago and half the world away stuck out in his mind, as they always did whenever he shifted from his usual plan of approach. Attacking the enemy where they felt comfortable was the preferred method, to maximize their fear when he finally struck. But exceptions such as these arose. For one, Manny's was an old butcher shop with one front entrance and one at the back leading directly into the meat locker. A perfect spot for Croc and his latest gang of gun runners to meet up for booze and poker but too damn small to fight in, especially against someone as vicious as Croc.

He'd learned many years ago, following a particularly vicious fight inside a bowling alley bathroom, you didn't fight him in an enclosed space period. Not if you wanted to keep your own intestine inside. Between himself, Captain America and Croc, seven more thugs sat inside the locker where dozens of butchered animals hung around their table. It would've been a mess just with him and Croc inside, adding in the rest only added complications better to avoid.

Instead, they would come to him, to them, out into the street where most of them would rush out like frightened hens into their hands. The cars which they parked nearby, one in front Manny's and one inside the dead-end alley were all rendered immobile with their tires slashed. An explosive gel was poured into a nearby fuse box feeding power into the shop. The remaining two charges were applied to the floor situated at an abandoned apartment just above the spot where Croc and his men were playing cards.

Rogers was crouched at a fire-escape overlooking the alley, ready to pick off anyone who tried to run that way, while Batman surveyed Croc's latest hideout from the opposite end of the street. He didn't voice any protests or suggestions. He simply said alright, nodded then went to his post. The brief bout of shock overtaking him was instantly replaced by the confident professionalism he'd seen at the signal.

"Captain," He called out through a private frequency between the cowl and his earpiece. "It starts in five seconds."

"Copy that."

The first thing to go was the aforementioned fuse box, killing all power routed into the butcher shop. With his eyes covered in white lenses, giving him long and short range night and x-ray vision, he could see the assembled group rise from their chairs, some already pulling their guns and looking about. He gave them three seconds of relative peace before blowing the roof above their heads away, literally.

The small explosion was nowhere near strong enough to take them all down, but it didn't need to: it made them scared and more importantly running to save their own hides. As his thugs crouched and scrambled about, he could even from this distance here Croc shout for them to stop, that it was all his plan to pick them off. He wasn't wrong, but it didn't matter. Four ran made for alley car while the other three scrambled to the ones parked in front Manny's.

"Wait until they try to run again," He told Rogers and observed them a little while longer. They pounded at their steering wheels, cursing God, Croc, Gotham, their heart rates spiking more and more as shown by a small monitor running data at the corner of Batman's eye. Croc stayed inside, pacing inside the locker back and forth, no doubt trying to come up with some clever plan of escape.

A smarter man might try to use the hole above the ceiling to run away but Croc's mutation took a toll on his intellect and the decades of submitting to his savage instincts didn't help. It made him reckless, temperamental and fiercely territorial. Batman was surprised he had enough good sense to hold himself back at all instead of charging out first. Possibly since he didn't smell him yet, but the vigilante didn't doubt that when Croc caught a whiff of him, he'd lose whatever restraint kept him inside quickly.

It didn't help that Croc... Waylon despised him fiercely as Batman and Bruce Wayne. The recent conversation with Rogers reminded him of why of old guilt, he'd buried years ago. It was some time into his crime-fighting tenure when more and more people wondered just how effective his methods were, a question he'd asked himself back then very often.

It made him try a different, initially promising approach. Reaching out to Kirk Langstrom, once the Man-Bat, as Batman, he concocted a tale of cooperation, one where he served as a messenger for Bruce Wayne who wanted to use his vast resources to help cure the so-called Freaks of Gotham.

Kirk agreed, and following a tense three week period, they managed to create a cure for not only the Man-Bat serum but one that eliminated Kirk's almost drug addicted need for it. He and his family are still working at Wayne Enterprises to this day.

Victor and his wife Nora were next, it took two months to help them and the two moved to Metropolis after Victor served the remainder of his sentence in Arkham.

Basil Karlo was the next and by then most difficult one. His entire molecular structure was altered far more profoundly than Victor or Kirk. Curing him was simply not possible, however, a series of nanites, under Basil's command, were strategically inserted into his body and through a slight, electrical discharge, gave him the ability to properly solidify himself and keep his original appearance. Currently, he's playing Macbeth at a prominent BBC television series.

News spread far and wide over the success of Wayne Enterprises reforming these loathed criminals. Suddenly, it seemed like things could get better, he distinctly remembered feeling like he could truly save Gotham then. He could save his friend Harvey Dent's soul, restore Pamela Isley's faith in mankind, perhaps even, restore the man Joker once was too.

But, it wouldn't be Gotham if something promising wasn't stamped out.

Soon after Basil was cured, Waylon Jones, after completing a six month stay in Arkham with absolutely no incidents, made his way to the G.C.P.D. headquarters and turned on the signal. Jim and Bullock were ready to haul him away when Batman arrived, that was when Waylon got on his knees and begged him for help. His plea didn't go unanswered. For the next six months, countless ideas and solutions were tried, with even Kirk and Victor brought in to help give their help on the matter.

All of them failed, and Bruce had to watch the last shreds of Waylon's humanity die off. Unlike Victor or Kirk or Basil, all of who were normal men transformed by extreme circumstances, Waylon was born that way. You couldn't cure it anymore then you could cure a person's need to breathe oxygen.

There was simply something fundamentally wrong with him. He was the first in a long, long string of failures to follow.

But before this rush of unexpected and unwanted guilt could continue, the sound of motors failing to run and men cursing snapped Batman back to the matter of hand. As expected, they'd realized their cars were as good as an immovable boulder for getting away and began to scatter.

Contacting Rogers again, he simply said: "Now."

Spreading his arms out, he ran a surge of electricity from his gloves into the cape, hardening it for gliding. Batman purposefully flew over the solitary functioning street light, allowing the guns a good, frightening look at him, freezing them expectantly in place. With a quick motion, he produced three Batarangs and flung them at the thugs. Just as they were about to fire on him, the bladed projectiles dug into their shoulders and hands, keeping them in-place just long enough for him to finally come down on them mere seconds later.

Pulling his legs and arms back, he shifted position in mid-air then in the last possible moment shootout with both legs, sending the bottoms of his boots crashing into the thug's faces with satisfying sounds of crushed noses and pained yells following suit. They fell backward, crashing into the car behind them, one against the door, another rolling over the hood. Both were almost immediately knocked out.

The last of them, a middle-aged man with greying hair actually worked up the nerve to pull the Batarang sticking out of his hand and tried to attack its owner with it. Batman simply pulled his arm back and launched it at the man's gut, knocking the air out of him instantly. His consciousness followed a second later when another punch connected across his face.

In the alley nearby, thanks to his x-ray, Detective Vision as Jason called it, Batman could see the battle happening there. Though he only saw it as skulls battling in a blue, computerized environment, it didn't make Rogers any less impressive to behold. His shield bounced around from wall to wall, sending the crooks into a mad panic as they couldn't decide to shoot at him or it. Ultimately, it struck them both across the face before returning to its master's hand just in time for him to swing it at a crook standing behind him. The one in front? He kicked into the alley wall with the kind of force you could only get by tossing a running man over your shoulder.

Batman wished he could've seen it properly but a loud, animalistic snarl brought him back to the matter at hand. Croc had picked up his scent, alongside a slaughtered cow hanging inside the locker and was coming for him... through two walls. He blasted through the interior of the shop and was out on the street in no time. With that much momentum, it was easy for him to swing the cattle meat overhead and fling it at Batman.

The vigilante rolled out of the way just as it was about to slam into him, only to see Croc charging at him. Even at almost 50 years of age, Croc was impossibly fast, closing over half the distance at a rate to put Olympic runners to shame. Just as Batman prepared to take the hit, Captain America's shield struck the mutated crook with enough force to stagger him momentarily. Batman rolled out of the way and brought himself back up to full height as he, Croc and Rogers stood in the street, illuminated by flickering lamp overhead.

A second rush of guilt almost coursed through him as he watched Jones, snarling and snapping at the two of them, his eyes wild and even more depraved then the last time they'd seen one another. He stomped it out quickly, momentarily cursing Rogers for getting to him so easily.

"Croc," He growled out. "The men hitting Gotham's banks with experimental weaponry, who and where are they. Answer me quick and I'll make this as painless as possible."

"Kiss mah green scaly hide!"

Scowling at him, Batman prepared to attack only for Rogers to speak up.

"Please," He said calmly, glancing between the two of them and raising his hands ever so slightly. "You've seen what those weapons can do, and a lot of good people will die if we don't-"

"Is tis guy fer real?" Croc half-snarled, half-laughed, looking at Batman almost conspiratorially then. "Yer more a idiet if ya think I giva crap!"

He launched himself at Rogers to claw him to pieces. A poor move, almost the second his claws tried to cut, they snapped clean out of Croc's fingers upon striking the shield. An inhuman roar exploded out of his throat as he stared at the profuse bleeding. Batman took advantage of it, disconnecting his cape from the cowl and covered Croc's entire upper body with it. A surge of electricity powerful enough to bring down a rhino reverberated through the cape and directly into the mutated criminal, it only took a few seconds to bring Croc to his knees.

"I'll ask again," Batman growled once more, tightening his grip on the cape. "The men hitting Gotham's banks, they're using guns unlike anything else on the market. What do you and your pals know about it?!"

"Piss off-AAAAHHHHH" Another, higher voltage surge ran through the cap.

"What. Do. You. Know?!"

"N-nuthin! I swear-" A third surge ran, this one so strong Croc actually started to smoke and smell from inside the cape. However, before Batman could continue his interrogation, Rogers grabbed him by the arm and forced his hand back.

"He said he doesn't know anything," Rogers stated firmly, exerting just enough force to keep Batman's hand away without actually hurting it. "There's no point in torturing him."

"Move away."

"So long as you do the same for him."

Batman almost considered sneering at him, at the naivety of thinking Croc was simply telling the truth after as little as this. Worse still, by the fact, Rogers thought this was torture when Croc himself had done far worse to others and survived far worse done to him than a little electricity. It even crossed his mind to strike the man aside and go about his business anyway, but something stayed Batman's hand. Not just a fear of Rogers' clear abilities, that was something he'd dealt with before, but another factor he couldn't or wouldn't admit.

With another long breath, the anger he'd felt receded as another idea came to mind, a tactic he hadn't used in a while but one which proved very effective over the last two years. Pulling the cape away, Croc fell face first onto the concrete, moaning and clutching at his still bleeding fingers. With a measured pace, Batman returned his cape to where it belonged and walked to the mutated crooks right side, Rogers never relaxed as he watched both of them, his shield throwing hand always ready to spring if necessary.

"Croc," He spoke in a softer voice. "Do you remember what I did to Joker?"

Suddenly, the mutate stopped dead, if it wasn't for the sounds of his rough breathing, one might assume he was dead.

"The regular human body is very to break when you know what you're doing like I do," He continued, almost sounding conversational. "Which is why, when I say how much of a challenge you'd be, you should know I'm not kidding around. In truth, to break your arms, legs or teeth that badly, I'd have to run you over with my car, a few times too. You know, the one that breaks through buildings like cardboard."

Croc tilted his head ever so slightly to look up at him, gone was the animalistic anger, replaced by very, very human looking fear. It was time to capitalize on it.

"Just imagine that pain," Batman jerked towards his fingerless hand. "All over, from my car running you down. Several times."

He let that sink in, counting down to ten as Croc practically shrank down right at his feet. Momentary glancing at Rogers, Batman was surprised to find a tinge of fear even in the Captain's eyes, it mostly satisfied him.

"I swear, I don't kno nuthin..." Croc whispered as a frightened child would and rage threatened to take Batman over, one demanding physical punishment. But his rational part won over, for all of his anger and enhanced abilities, the mutated crook was when put into a corner, just as spineless as rest of them. Too afraid to even consider lying to him.

"I believe you," He replied before bringing his whole leg up and with absolutely every ounce of strength he had in it, brought it down on Croc's head. Thankfully, he didn't need more than the one to go down. For once. Reaching into his belt, he let out an incredibly long, thin but powerful titanium alloy rope capable of holding down an elephant without snapping and began wrapping it around Croc, starting from his mouth first. He tossed another roll to Rogers.

"Make sure they can't move."

Rogers didn't move from what he could hear, instead of standing there staring at the street where they'd just fought. "So, this is it? How it all gets done in Gotham? You show up, beat and scare everyone until you get what you want?"

"If I got what I wanted, they'd stop doing what they do."

"And what's that?" Rogers took a step forward, indignation clear in his voice. "A whole city too afraid to do anything to not mess with the big, bad, Batman?"

"Not a whole city," He finished tying down Croc. "Just the people who think they'll get away with crime."

"That can't happen."

"Doesn't make it any less worth fighting for."

"Maybe there are other ways to do it besides bullying people into acting the way you want."

"I wouldn't bully if anything else worked!" Batman snapped, losing patience for the moral posturing by Rogers.

"Basil Karlo, Victor Freeze-"

"Were exceptions to the rule, for every one of them I can name 20 who couldn't be helped with anything else but by ending up in a body cast. Waylon Jones included," He glanced over at the man-in-question lying near them, his features softening imperceptibly. "For months, he acted as a human being, but the second he didn't get what he wanted, he went back to business as usual. The things we both know he's committed."

"And he should pay his debts to society for it," Rogers stated firmly, placing his shield onto his back. "But the reason Jones even had a chance, even though he had one, was from you and Bruce Wayne giving him hope and I sure as hell don't see that in this town. Just a lot of people going downhill fast, and I won't stand for it. Not while I can help it."

Walking to the other crooks, Captain America tied them down as well, knowing Batman was right at least on that front. As he joined him moments later, the Caped Crusader of Gotham wore an unreadable expression on his face. To hide the fact he couldn't figure out if Rogers was just another idealistic fool about to get broken by this place, or someone who had a very good point.


	6. Sentinels and Knights Part 5

"Is this how every night goes?" Steve asked as he stopped a second to catch his breath and survey the surroundings of their latest fight. A rundown house that looked more suited for an H.Y.D.R.A. prison camp than a place for anyone, much less a family to live in. The fact it's creaking, decayed floorboards, moss and wood rot covered walls were used as a base of operations for Great White Shark, a man who looked something out of an old EC horror comic and his gang of wanted drug runners only made it look worse.

It was the tenth one of the so-called Gotham Freaks they'd run into during the night. An evening that took Steve to and from every corner of the city, giving him a sort of guided tour from a perspective most people besides his... partner, hadn't experienced. Between jumping around rooftops of varying sizes and fighting Batman's assortment of enemies, Steve would've gotten quite a workout. The fact Gotham seemed to constantly throw something else in-between or during these encounters tired him in a way he hadn't felt since fighting the Chitauri months ago.

Break-ins, car chases in progress, a half-blind old man being mugged... this and much more needed their attention and Batman didn't hesitate to respond. With a stern professionalism, lacking in the ruthlessness or anger he'd seen during Croc's "interrogation", he went about the rest of evenings festivities as the two of them did all they could to help out. He even saw the scourge of Gotham's underworld grapnel into a burning, five-story apartment building just as it was about to collapse to save a little girls puppy and bring it back to her.

It was a bizarre thing to see, how one man was capable of electrocuting someone until they were scorching and then risk his life for a house pet just to make a kids bad night a smidge less bad. Almost as surprising, was the fact so many people were ready to jump in and help during the whole thing, bringing people water, inviting them into their homes until they could pick themselves up. For a town where everyone looked as afraid as folks overseas under Nazi occupation in the daytime show such community spirit at night only threw Steve for a loop.

Batman wasn't done with the surprises, either. Even the way he went about fighting and questioning the crooks they'd nabbed was less severe, though the basic principle of terrifying them never went away. Still, saying you would snap someone's leg, then illustrate the point by bending a metal bar with your bare hands was a far cry from actually trying to break them apart. Steve couldn't tell if he'd taken his words to heart, or was just putting a tighter leash on himself to avoid a confrontation between them.

Either way, it worked, as evidenced by the fact the situation failed to become so tense again. The night felt like a rollercoaster enough without hostilities between them, not that Batman seemed to mind as he finished cuffing Great White Shark. From his posture and breathing, he seemed ready to keep going at it for 8 more hours.

"More or less," He answered flatly then stopped to glare at the rooms sole window. "It's getting late."

Steve followed his gaze and noticed a light coming from outside, a very faint one showing the sun beginning to rise off in the distance. With the night sky a very dark blue, Gotham once again seemed to transform right in front of his eyes. Like all everything bad the night brought was just a little while away from getting better. Unfortunately, if the pattern from the last two days was any indication, that wouldn't be true.

"And those guns are still out there," The super soldier sighed. He hoped that Great White Shark would know something, and when Batman confronted him, offering him a reduced sentence in exchange for his cooperation, it seemed as though they might've found a clue or lead. Shark had done a wide assortment of crimes through the past five years of trying to get to the top of Gotham's underworld, including gun running.

For a minute, it seemed as though he'd accepted the offer, only for one of his thugs to try and shoot Batman in the back of the head. Needless to say, no one came out of that fight getting what they wanted.

"Only for a while longer, if you catch them."

Steve gave him a puzzled look. "Preemptively stopping the next robbery isn't going to happen, but with you here, we can still end this within the next few hours."

He followed Batman down the stairs, the first normal way of getting out of a place either of them had used that night. "I don't work during the day, not unless I can help it. You, however, have no such restrictions. With your abilities and my technology, you've got a good chance of getting to the next robbery and stopping this outright."

They'd exited the house just as Batman's car, with no one driving it, of course, came to them. On the outside, it looked like someone had combined one of those new-fangled sports cars with a jet fighter and tank. Steve even joked that Howard would've fallen in love with it, Batman just gave him a sidelong look, the kind you saved for people who you especially wanted to punch in the face. No more jokes were tried by the Super Soldier after that. Once inside, the two blasted off back into the heart of Gotham city, avoiding other cars at speeds that made even Steve reflexively flinch inside his seat.

"As you already know, I've created a warning system for crimes in progress that stretches throughout the whole city 24/7. The instant another bank robbery happens, the system inside the base will notify you of the where and when. After that, it's up to you."

"You're sure they're still around? They could've already left town, especially if they know the two of us are after them."

A noise between a scoff and a chuckle came from Batman, taking Steve by surprise. "These men aren't leaving, not of their own volition. They chose to come here, to Gotham where I operate. They could've gone anywhere else, any other city without someone like me there to get in their way."

"So they're out to make a name for themselves."

"Everyone of **them** is. Gotham has a way of drawing... ambitious people to it, most of which are up to no good. It's known who I am and what I've done here. If they can challenge and kill me in my own turf, they'll make a name for themselves overnight, not just here but across the whole country. Practically every criminal will be out to either join or try to replace them at the top."

"And then the next guy replaces them, and on and on it goes," Steve shook his head. "Don't they get how insane that is?"

"No more so than what you and I do."

Before Steve could refute this, Batman took a sharp turn with the car into a wall as they drove through one of the many street levels tunnels interspersed throughout the city, only, the wall opened and closed on their approach. They drove one for a few more minutes before halting at what was essentially an underground bunker, except with dozens of bright, almost blinding lights overhead and indentations visible on the floor.

"You've got your own subway station?" Steve climbed out, surveying his surroundings with a few tentative steps. A loud hissing noise from the ground got his attention and sure enough, Batman wasn't done with his surprises just yet. A series of compartments came out, one looking like it held another one of Batman's costumes inside, another with one of those computers built into it, another that looked like a giant briefcase,... Batman climbed out after and made way to a wall on the far side, his car drove itself to the edge of the room where it parked and shut itself down.

"You'll find food and water in the compartment next to the computer, don't touch anything else unless my associate lets you. He abhors people making a mess."

"Quite so, sir," Another voice, altered similarly to Batman's but softer suddenly spoke from the computer monitor, with the picture of a beagle of all things on it. "Still, military men are known for their tidiness. Unlike some people, I could name."

Another scoff laugh came from Batman who opened yet another wall, this time with an elevator inside it. As he turned around, Steve could swear he saw an honest to God smirk on his face before the wall closed and the vigilante left to wherever it was he was headed.

"I do apologize for his manners this evening, Batman is not what you might call a... people person."

"You've been listening in?" Steve asked as he removed his helmet, recounting a handful of instances where he could've sworn he saw Batman speaking or typing to someone during the night.

"Indeed, though, usually I tend to speak more, helps the time pass quicker, I've found."

"Yeah, sometimes me and the guys wouldn't know when to shut up during a mission in the war." Placing the helmet and shield on the computer table, Steve opened the briefcase looking compartment and sure enough, found dozens of sandwiches and bottles of water inside plastic bags, all neatly arranged next to one another. "You an A.I. like Jarvis?"

"No, and I ask that you not mention any and all Stark related things when he's around."

Steve chuckled as he took a bite. "Don't have to tell me twice."

"I'm afraid I must, however. It is a great honor to meet you, sir. Stories of your legendary exploits were ceaseless in my home growing up."

"Nothing too exaggerated, I hope?"

"After the privilege of watching you tonight? I believe it all, sir. You even managed to help my employer control himself, a feat even I've found quite difficult in recent years."

That peaked Steve's interest, whoever this Beagle was, he seemed to know Batman well, probably even outside the suit and mask. Reading about the man's exploits and seeing him operate gave Steve a conflicted idea of the guy, but it only made him want more answers, the kind Batman himself wouldn't give him. If him chewing out Tony all those months back taught him anything, there was always more than meets the eye with people.

"I wonder why?"

Beagle didn't respond for a little while. "He wouldn't want me to say so, but he's held a long-standing respect for you, sir. In fact, you were one of his primary inspirations for becoming Batman. The Batarang's propensity for returning and bouncing about was modeled after the dynamics of your shield."

"It didn't seem to stop him with Croc."

"Mister Jones... Is a complicated affair, as you are aware. Many things in Gotham City are."

Steve could concede the point, Gotham and Batman both seemed primed and ready to throw him for a loop. Looking daunting and twisted one minute then showing promise the next. It never crossed Steve's mind that a hero worship was, at least partly, the reason why his vigilante partner decided to dial it down. Before he could ask more, a loud yawn reminded him of the day's busy events, along with a sudden rush of fatigue he'd temporarily fought back.

"Might I suggest rest, sir?" Another thing rose out of the floor, a compartment the size of a grown man with a simple looking bed hidden inside. "Not the most comfortable of abodes but I suspect you've had worse."

He thought about arguing against napping when something could go wrong but Beagle, as if reading his mind, said, "Don't worry sir, should any crisis require your attention, I will wake you immediately."

It took him about thirty seconds of weighing his options before finally lying down. The bed was as hard as steel but Steve didn't mind, if anything, the comfiness of places he tended to sleep in put him off more than anything. Thankfully, Beagle killed the lights for his convenience, leaving only the monitor burning in the mostly dark and quiet room. Before the minute was up, Rogers like the lights.

* * *

 **Meanwhile, 50 Stories Up**

"He's fallen asleep, sir."

Bruce gave a non-committal grunt as he fumbled with his business tie, even after all these years and all his training, the damn thing remained a prominent bane of his very existence. He'd discarded the suit inside a special vault situated in his office and was mentally preparing himself for a long, tedious business meeting where his board of directors would no doubt try and pitch another cooperation with Stark Industries.

The thought annoyed it almost as much as Alfred's incoming jab about his poor sleeping habits. The wonders of modern technology were able to perfectly deliver that lovable wit of his even halfway across town through a computer screen.

"Quite an invention, sleep-"

 _There it is._

"You should try it, sir, a man your age would benefit greatly from it."

 _And an old joke, too. Wonderful._

"I'll sleep when the meetings over, which God willing will be mercifully brief." He reached out to the nearby chair, putting the top half of his business suit on. "The sooner I'm back out there catching these guys the better."

"Yes, you seemed to be having quite a bit of fun tonight."

Upon further inspection, his damn tie was crooked still, leaning a little too much to the left. With a sharp push, Bruce pulled it away then set about correcting it. Any delay here would only affect the rest of Wayne's public schedule for the day.

"Not that I can blame you, it's not every night a living legend comes to your home and gives you the opportunity to fight alongside him. Now the only one left of the big three is Zorro, I believe."

"Rogers is a fine soldier, and a capable partner," Bruce replied, trying to sound above it all. "Too idealistic for his own good but he'll learn soon enough."

"I should hope not, it's been far too long since we've gotten a bit of sunshine in this dreary city of ours."

Bruce answered with another grunt, almost giving a biting remark about how well that ended for the likes of Harvey Dent and many more he could list off. Something compelled him not too, however. Perhaps it was that damned sentimentality of childhood hero worship. The same kind he'd felt with Simon Trent as they solved the Mad Bomber case together all those years ago.

He couldn't deny how good it felt to experience something like that again or to have a partner by his side. Someone to cover his back, compensate for any mistake he'd made. Except Rogers was better, Robin- Jason, even after the completion of his training, was prone to bouts of arrogance and anger, forcing Bruce and Batman both to keep a constant vigil on him.

Steve Rogers had no such problem, the man was in-control and calm under pressure and though his fighting abilities were far inferior skill wise than what Batman or Robin offered, he used what he had to it's fullest effect. If anything, Batman was the one on the receiving end of a constant lookout.

Suddenly, he knew what Jason felt like on the receiving end of a lecture.

With a sigh, Bruce put those thoughts aside and put on another mask, one of an idiotic playboy ready to yawn and maybe even nap his way through an important meeting. His appearance set, he cast a last glance at Alfred looking closely at him from the monitor screen.

"If anything happens-"

"You'll be the second to know sir."


	7. Sentinels and Knights Part 6

Sleep was a luxury to a soldier. Steve learned this fact well during the war. When something could go wrong any minute of the day, being ready to move was one of the most important things to keep yourself, and more importantly, your comrades alive.

But it cut both ways, training yourself to jump whenever something loud enough to mistake for an artillery round or bomb meant you'd wake up for no good reason, for a false alarm.

Now was not one of those times. When a screeching noise, like car tires, screeching against a concrete floor suddenly went off, Steve was on his feet right away. Momentarily, he wondered why the bunker looked so off, like the inside of a hospital with the polished tiles on the floor and oddly enough the ceiling. Then he remembered everything in a daze shattering rush and ran to the computer monitor.

"Where are they, Beagle?"

"Gotham Merchant's Bank, sir," The dog icon shrank into the corner, leaving most of the monitor free to show footage of the latest heist. The robbers were already inside the lobby, brazenly showing off their Chitauri guns now and forcing people to the ground.

"Fortunately, some intelligent soul activated the silent alarm. We've still got time to intercept them."

"How long?" Steve put his helmet back on and holstered his shield when a wall on the far side suddenly opened up. From inside it, a sleek, black motorcycle drove itself to him. There was no steering wheel on it, but a pair of black handles sticking out on each side. A quick glance revealed how they ran parallel to one another into two canons positioned left and right of the front wheel. It might have been one of the most drop dead gorgeous bikes Steve had ever seen.

"The Batpod should get you there within 2 to 3 minutes. Fortunately, we've some tunnel space left for practice."

"After what Tony made me do on the Hellicarrier, a fast bike is a piece of cake."

Settling into the Batpod, Steve leaned forward with his entire upper body and settled each arm into their appropriate handles. Another wall sank near the parked Batmobile, revealing the web of tunnels connecting the bunker to Gotham. With a sharp stomp, the heel of his boot slammed into the peddle and almost immediately eased itself when he noticed the near instant burst from the Pod.

If the Liberator was fast, Batman's ride was what it would feel like to ride on a fired sniper round. The only reason Steve hadn't gone splat every time he turned was Beagle halfway controlling the thing instead. But his shock was only fleeting, and as he always did, Steve quickly figured out the intricacies behind it. Shoulder strength was paramount, so was shifting his upper body this way and that to make the bike move accordingly. Luckily, whoever designed it built it with this in mind, the tires move at angles no ordinary motorcycle could.

With each passing second, Beagle was stepping in less and Steve felt confident enough to make it go faster. After a sharp turn to the left, another a wall shrank into the ground, releasing a ray of sunshine and the noise of thousands, honking, sweating and swearing inside their cars in the miserable morning traffic into the pitch black, silent pathways.

"Prepare for the morning rush, sir. Dozens upon dozens of vehicles will be standing between you and the bank. I will guide you to it but how you deal with those obstacles at your speed is up to you."

"Understood."

Steve mentally counted down the seconds until the distance between himself and a tax stuck near the tunnel entrance closed. On 0, he jerked his whole upper body to the side and the Batpod along with it. It stopped skidding sideways just inches away from the taxi.

"Sorry!" Shouting the apology to the gawking cab driver, Steve blasted off towards the bank. The morning rush was even worse than he feared, the mess of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and everything in-between moving in all directions around him was like trying to dodge a rain of bullets. Squeezing, skidding in-between it all at speeds he'd never thought possible on a bike, narrowly avoiding from turning into a bloody smear on the sidewalk several times in just as many seconds.

"Sir, they've just blasted through the vault!"

"Copy that." Steve stomped the peddle harder, and just from the buzz of the engines, he knew his borrowed ride was straining itself to keep up. But he soon remembered Batman and knew faulty tech wouldn't let him down, and the pang of worry was promptly gone. After about four dozen more, almost crashes, he'd reached the Bowery where traffic seemed to die off the deeper he went in.

It almost looked to him as if he'd make it in time to catch the crooks in the bank when the explosions went off. Then the screams followed. A grim recollection of the previous robberies flashed through Steve's mind, of how they shot up defenseless people in the streets to mask their getaways. Batman's guess at their motives didn't help the cold chill he felt.

All of this murder and thievery and for what? Money? Reputation?

As each shot carried through the air, Steve tried to force the Bat-Pod to go faster. These men couldn't get away with this, not anymore. He only wished he could've stopped them from doing this last job period.

"They're running for the back entrance, sir! Just six blocks to your left!"

"Got it," Another sharp turn brought him down the street where in the distance he could see the Merchants Bank along with the fumes of smoke rising near it. More importantly, though, he saw them, the crooks making for a fancy looking pair, black getaway cars.

Much to Steve's chagrin, they were splitting up with one heading north and the other to the east. Even with the Pod, there was no way he could catch them both. As if reading his mind, though, Beagle had a solution. As he rushed towards the northward car, Steve heard a faint click behind him along with a warbling noise. At his peripheral vision, he saw a flying, black device hovering near him before going after the east car.

"A mobile drone, it will deal with others while you apprehend their colleagues here."

Sure enough, the drone blasted off toward the car like a manhunting, giant bullet. Beagle and Batman's toys hadn't let him down so far, and it wasn't like had many other choices. The north car, after taking a sharp right and narrowly hitting a bicycle driver, finally noticed him. It's top opened and one of the goons, holding that Chitauri rifle, was aiming for Steve.

With the practiced grace from dozens of training hours and missions, the Super Soldier took hold of his trusty shield and readied himself to throw it when the crook suddenly aimed away from him and chose the streets instead.

Cursing the man, Steve flung the shield towards the rough trajectory of the rifle round, successfully shooting it out of the sky. His success almost cost him everything when the goon suddenly kept firing at a rate he'd never seen from the Chitauri guns before. If the weapons he'd encountered in New York months ago were like M1 Garand's, whatever they'd done to them, turned them into alien Thompson submachine rifles.

Dozens of tiny alien rounds came at him and peppered the street around the Pod. They were so fast Steve had no choice but to keep his shield up at all times, even if it cut his field of vision into less than half of what it was. It didn't help that controlling the Pod with just one arm was proving more of a challenge than he'd expected it too.

Luckily, they weren't the only ones with some firepower. Lulling them into a false sense of superiority, Steve let them pin him down a little while longer before unloading the canons at them. It didn't stop the car wholesale as a bizarre blue field shimmered when the round hit it, but it did blow enough of the road just underneath it to make it bump and violently spin out of control. It also made the goon drop the rifle.

Shoving his shield back into place, Steve titled the Pod to the side just a bit more and managed to snatch the gun just as it banged against the street like a basketball.

"Place it in a compartment near your feet, sir."

Doing so, Steve felt the gun sit into place with a satisfying click then refocused back on the goons. He was about to fire another round on them when the crook from before came back out and threw something at him. It almost looked like a Chitauri rifle and Steve was mentally preparing to try and throw it as high into the air as he could when it went off.

Instead of a blue energy blast smashing him to pieces, a giant spire of ice shot up from where the grenade was, covering the entire street right in front of him.

"Oh hell."

* * *

"And Stark Industries is reporting a quarterly growth of over 12%-"

 _A Freeze Blast,_ Bruce mentally tuned out the latest Stark/Wayne sales pitch as Alfred reported Roger's car chase through the Bowery. Ever since it started, the situation was both relieving and maddening to him. It gave him a reprieve from this insufferable exercise he had to go through every month, at least once but it also meant he couldn't do anything directly.

A group of money-grubbing bastards was out there, in his town killing the people he'd sworn to protect with an alien gun and it was Rogers, not him, trying to stop them. It wasn't the first time a crime happened during the day when he had to sleep, rest or do Bruce Wayne's business. But it always pained him, even after almost 20 years.

"And the alien invasion has opened up new real estate possibilities for opening up a Wayne division in-"

"He's blasted through it sir, just barely as for the drone, it narrowly lost the perpetrators but I've hidden it near an alleyway to lie in wait for them."

Bruce gave an affirmative cough while his hand gripped the handle tightly enough to snap it in half. The fact they armed themselves with alien weaponry was worrying, but the Freeze Blast, an incomplete weapon Victor never finished thanks to being cured was out there now. Meaning someone, somewhere dug up the schematics for it or worse, engineered it out of exiting Mister Freeze tech.

He and Victor tried to destroy as much of it as possible, but still, it was always possible something slipped through the cracks. Bruce would consider it a clue if there weren't about a thousand different scenarios to explain the why's and how's behind this. That was just off the top of his head.

Still, Rogers had a chance of catching them, and Alfred's drone was apparently about to either stop or tag the crooks. Whichever way the next few minutes went, these men would face justice now or by tonight. Alfred never let him down, and Rogers was a living legend who more than proved the validity of the stories surrounding him if anyone could do Batman's work instead, it was them.

The thought was almost enough to help him relax until Alfred spoke back up. "Sir! Something's gone wrong! The drone, someone's attacked it!"

Keeping his face carefully neutral, Bruce let the flood of questions bubbling inside slip out as another, gruffer cough.

"I don't know, sir! It suddenly just exploded, it didn't even tag the car- Oh no..."

"And Miss Potts has already voiced her support for a proposed joint venture-"

Bruce gave another questioning cough, instead of Alfred answering, he heard Rogers on the other end. The man was panting loudly, and a loud crashing noise resounded somewhere in the background.

"Who are you?"

"Fury didn't mention me? That's disappointing, after all, I've done for him too."

This time, it took all of Bruce's acting abilities imparted to him by Alfred to keep the cold fear from cracking to the surface. That voice, filtered but unmistakeably gruff and arrogantly snide, belonging to one of the most dangerous men on the entire planet: Slade Wilson, Deathstroke.

Exceptions like Shiva and Ras notwithstanding, Bruce could not imagine a more dangerous adversary and Rogers was about to fight him? Basic WW2 era military training and a shield against a man armed enough for 20 and a master of just as many martial arts?

Rogers didn't stand a chance, not alone.

Ignoring the fact he was about to break one of his oldest rules, Bruce let out a long sigh and prepared himself for another fake, mid-meeting vomiting. He just hoped he'd where he needed to be on time.

* * *

A right hook miserably failed, leaving him open for a throat jab. A dozen strikes from his stick followed as he gasped for air. When he tried to block, the enemy went for his knee, hitting it hard enough to break his guard and kick him down onto the ground.

"This is disappointing," The one-eyed man in the black and yellow suit said as he circled him, spinning his stick this way and that. "The legendary Captain America and this is the best you can do?"

The stick, which could retract on both ends, suddenly reached its full length and came down from an overhead strike. Steve rolled out of the way and used the momentum to fling his shield. His enemy, whoever he was, might've taken him by surprise when he grappled Steve onto the nearby rooftop from the Pod, but that edge of his was gone.

As he wanted it to, the shield bounced this way and that against a water storing tower, the floor, and a nearby, empty birdcage, leaving his adversary confused. Taking advantage of that, Steve charged at the man with a leaping, overhead punch only to hit nothing but empty air.

Whoever this guy was, he probably assumed Steve was angry his attack had failed, but it didn't. In about a second, the shield was about to smack him from behind, right into the kick Steve was winding up.

That's what was supposed to happen, instead? The Super Soldier turned to find his shield deftly avoided just inches away from hitting its mark who spun out of its way and simultaneously extended his stick for a swing.

The swings speed and force sent the shield crashing into Steve's chest. Gasping, he tried to refocus but the stick snapping his noise didn't help. Somehow, in the exchange of blows that followed, he managed to slip his hand through the shield belts, for what little good it did him.

He could see everything that the one-eyed man sent his way, this guy, whoever he was, had abnormal speed and strength. Not on his level, but the closest he'd seen so far. If it came down to just that, Steve felt he could beat him. But it didn't.

The way this man switched in and out of attack and defense, from punches to kicks to stick strikes and any combination thereof. How he almost seemed to dance as he broke Steve down little by little, it reminded him of Batman. Except the frightening thing was, he figured even Batman wasn't this good.

That thought, probably more than any hit he'd taken so far, hurt his drive to keep fighting the most. But he didn't get where he was by quitting, and no one, not even this guy, would make him. He'd win, or he'd die trying to.

"I'd seen how rudimentary your fighting skills were in New York, but even I thought you could do better than a cadet."

Spitting out some blood, Steve glared at the one-eyed man and silently challenged him with another rush. As expected, his enemy sidestepped and was no doubt about to swing with that stick of his, but it wouldn't work this time.

Remembering a particular move Batman pulled, a mid-air spinning kick, Steve hoped he could pull it off to knock this guy for a loop. All he needed was a chance, a second to turn the tide and land a winning hit.

However, as he jumped into the air and tried to make his body twist properly, a sharp pain exploded from his back. Before he could hit the ground, the one-armed man caught his leg mid-air and flung Steve almost ten feet across the air into a brick wall.

The sound of bricks smashing was almost loud enough to drown out something else crunch inside his back. Fighting through the pain and getting the shield back up, Steve was forced back into the wall when his enemy smashed into him, grabbed a falling brick out of the air and rammed it into the soldier's eye.

Steve was sure something broke that time, his sight of the whole world certainly did, his right ear followed when an elbow crashed into it like a runaway car. Sometime in the ensuing beatdown, he lost his shield and tried to use his arms instead. Pretty soon, even they went down as the one-eyed man turned him into a human punching bag.

By the time it was over, Steve had no idea how the hell he was still standing.

"The greatest soldier in history," The one-eyed man barked a laugh. "To think I came from a disappointment like you."

The feeling of something cold and metallic press itself against Steve's forehead helped him focus. An ensuing click confirmed what he suspected it was.

"Still, killing you will make me renowned the world over. Maybe I'll even get invited to run the Avengers!"

Trying to do something, anything, Steve refused to believe it would end this way when a familiar whizzing noise cut through the ringing in his ears. A second later, the clang of metal hitting metal did too, along with the one-eyed man yelling in pain.

If Steve didn't hurt like hell, he would've laughed. Instead, it came out like a pained cough. His legs finally gave away when he felt Batman put his arm over his shoulder.

"You? Out in the daylight?"

"Not just me."

Something like a Quinjet boomed from somewhere up in the sky, followed by the unmistakable noise of machine gun rounds hitting bricks. Blinking to clear his vision, Steve saw a giant, black jet stick out in the clear blue morning sky, raining all hell on the one-eyed man.

He didn't seem so smug as he ran, the trail of weird bullets following him until he jumped down to street level. The jet didn't chase him, opting to hover nearby while Batman carried Steve and his shield towards it.

The black monstrosity of a jet opened up, revealing a front and back seat. Feeling the comfort of the chair as Batman gingerly put him inside, the Super Soldier caught sight of the man stick out like a sore thumb in the daylight.

He would've chuckled if his strength hadn't left him and he blacked out.

* * *

 **Review Respone: Guest R u shipping BatCap?**

Nope, there is no such pairing in this story nor will there ever be.


	8. A Historic Event

"I am Groot."

"He's not gonna find us."

"I am Groot..."

"Kanjar Ro couldn't track down a sun if he jumped his ship right into it! Trust me, that ugly bastard and his crew are on the other side of the galaxy by now. No way he tracked us past the gas giant."

"I am Groot...?"

"Course I had to kick his ass at Cabass! Bug-eyed creep like that needs another reminder that the universe hates his sorry guts! Sides, " Rocket grinned. "We got 5000 credits out of it."

"I am Groot..."

"Glad you finally agree, now, quit worrying and help me pry this thing open already!"

"I am Groot!"

Backing away from the door, Rocket watched his partner work his magic on the derelict ship buried at the bottom of the canyon. Being an aficionado of all things tech-related, mostly guns and explosives but not exclusively, Rocket knew it was an especially old rust bucket. The shape of it looked like a bunch of primitive, barely space faring fliers you could find it lots of species history books. Hell, it might have been one of those for all they knew, which wouldn't be a lot.

Momma nature had done a pretty good job screwing with it. From what he could see, almost the whole thing got covered with decades, maybe centuries of rock, grass, and vines. They almost missed the damn thing too, their employer's info was so crap all it said was to look for a canyon-shaped like a dragon tooth.

Ordinarily, Rocket wouldn't take a job that vague, but when cash was tight, pride left your belly and gun both real empty. Not that Groot had to worry about that, being a walking tree, a little sunshine was plenty to keep him going. Being a shape-shifter from head to toe, well, that made him all the guns he'd ever need.

He'd transformed his fingers into a million vines, all running through the rock and grime and drilling into the hull. It was a move he'd seen Groot do a million times and it always creeped the hell out of him. Not that Rocket was squeamish, he'd killed guys for calling him that, but shooting or blowing a guy up was one thing. Ripping him to shreds from the inside out while he screamed bloody murder was another.

"I AM GROOT!" With that same man crushing power, he pulled his arms back and with a satisfying metal screech, ripped right through all the crap standing in the way of their paycheck.

"Nice work pal," Rocket patted him on the leg while he untangled his fingers from the slabs of metal. "You stay here and make sure nothing nasty sneaks up and chews my head off, alright?"

"I am Groot!"

"Atta boy." Rocket unholstered the modified, collapsable Neural Impacter off his back, turning on its light as he went inside the ship, lighting it up with his flashlight.

Their fruity robot client wanted a box inside from the ship with a vaguely circle-ish symbol on it. Because vague was the operative word with this job, concrete facts and information were for idiots.

Luckily, the ship wasn't big, meaning even Rocket's shrunk rifle light gave him a pretty good look of the whole thing. Momma nature sunk her teeth inside it too, moss and flowers popping up all over the place. Nothing that looked dangerous at first glance but Rocket wasn't stupid enough to trust those.

Pushing some plates of grass out of the way, he went deeper inside towards the midsection where a mini-jungle was growing. It almost made him miss the skeleton buried under some funky looking purple fungus. Now, Rocket was no doctor, but he'd blown away enough Ungaran's to recognize one, even as a skeleton. The elongated head, the thick bone around the eyebrows, and little chin spikes were a dead giveaway.

Wrapped around his bony fingers, was the box, Rocket grinned. "30 000 credits here we come."

Keeping his rifle trained on the flower garden around the skeleton, Rocket reached out and with a hard but fast pull ripped the box away. It wasn't a big one, fitting just comfortable enough in Rocket's paw. Nor did it look locked, and the client never said they couldn't take a peek at what was inside.

What he discovered was a green ring with the same circle-ish symbol on it. Weighing it in his paw, Rocket couldn't see what the big deal was. The smell of it didn't point to any valuable material, but it still looked brand new somehow.

Maybe if they figured it out, they could sell it for more then what the robot was offering or to muscle a few more credits out of him. With the boxed ring in toe, Rocket casually exited the ship, whistling as he thought of which angle to take for the negotiations.

"I am Groot?" His partner asked, following Rocket away from the vessel towards the canyon's walls lined with jagged rocks and flora covering them for miles upward.

"Yeah I got it," He shook the box in the air. "Our boss of the week wants the ring inside. Don't ask me why it though, looks green and tacky to me."

"I am Groot!"

"You bet your twiggy ass we're gonna milk it for all it's worth!" With a laugh, the two partners began their climb up the three hundred foot tall walls comprising the canyon. Well, Groot did anyway while Rocket stationed himself on his shoulder, his rifle primed and ready to gun down anything that might go after them on the way up.

Luckily, no critters, climbing or flying, bothered them and the pair were inside their space worthy rust bucket within half an hour. It wasn't an impressive ship by any stretch, two humans couldn't fit inside without cramping something fierce. When one of the two was as modestly built as Rocket, it wasn't much of a problem.

With a satisfying thud, the raccoon nestled comfortably in the pilot's seat and immediately cranked up the air conditioning. Groot crouched just behind him, settling in as their craft slowly took off from the jungle planet.

Moments later, they were leaving it behind, entering the void of space. Rocket's fingers danced around the controls, flipping switches, pressing down button all in preparation for the space jump.

"Alert," The simple, onboard A.I. stated. "Imminent space jump collision detected, evasive maneuvers advised."

"Oh hell,..." Rocket muttered with a violent jerk of the piloting wheel, sending their ship into a hard turn left. A flash of blue light emerged at the port, forcing Rocket into performing a downward spin out of the way.

Switching to a rear view screen built into the console, Rocket spotted about a dozen more ships entering the system. He couldn't stop himself from audibly cringing when he recognized whom they belonged to. The ugliness of the vessels with their piss yellow color and stretched out bridges made them a perfect fit for Kanjar Ro and his merc crew.

"I am-"

"Don't you start!" Rocket barked as he tried to make a run for it back to the planet's surface when a rocket detonation from the front promptly killed that idea. The fact they were able to cut him off almost immediately proved they'd locked on, meaning Kanjar Ro hadn't killed them yet on purpose. He wanted to talk first. Rocket grinned, he'd make him regret it.

"Get our surprise ready, pal, I'll buy you some time."

"I am Groot..."

"I know the risks! Just do it!"

While Groot extended the roots of his feet subtly through the floor, inching towards a switch connected directly into the ship's engine, Rocket mentally prepared himself for what was about to come. Opening his comm channel, the face of Kanjar Ro showed up on the main panel. As always, Rocket fought the urge to gag.

If there was ever a mug grotesque enough to make somebody off themselves just by looking at it, Kanjar Ro had it. It wasn't the rows of yellow always sticking out, bucked teeth or the pink, shriveled-looking skin. Not just that, anyway, but the eyes especially. Only two, thank whatever God there is, but nasty all the same. Ever seen a close up of a fly's face? Imagine eyes like that except on a vaguely human-ish head.

Now, Rocket wasn't necessarily a guy who'd advocate xenocide, but if he ever found a planet full of Kanjar Ro's he'd put it down in the name of eugenics.

"Rocket!" He shouted, his creepy eyes bulging to almost twice their usual size. "You cheating, scum sucking vermin! Give me back my money!"

"Now Kanjar," Rocket ignored the gagging sensation some more, taking a tone of practiced casualness. "You lost fair, man, don't act like a sore loser."

"Sore loser?!"

Another nearby detonation shook the ship, nearly knocking Rocket out his seat. "Is that really necessary?!"

"Your fate is in your own hand's Rocket. Return my money to me, and you'll both survive."

Something behind Rocket snapped loudly enough for Kanjar Ro's eyes to narrow suspiciously. Forcing back the urge to smack Groot across the face, he thought of something else to buy more time. That's when inspiration struck.

"And if I say no?" Rocket smirked, crossing his arms.

"Are you insane?! I just told you I'd blow you and that tree of yours out of-"

"Along with your money." Rocket interjected casually. Kanjar Ro gawking at him was probably the best look he'd ever seen on that nightmare of a face. "You know, that thing you're after us for? You blow us up, you can kiss all those credits goodbye."

"I-I don't- What?!"

"What, am I speaking Thanagarian?" Rocket leaned closer to the console. "You off us, your money's gonzo and I will definitely get us both killed just to spite you."

Groot rumbled something from behind in mock horror while Rocket heard him fiddling around the wires some more. Kanjar Ro stared as if someone smacked him in the gonads. For a while, Rocket thought it would buy enough time. That was until Kanjar Ro's eyes narrowed and his teeth clenched so hard Rocket thought he might snap all fifty of them in half.

"Then I'll just have to satisfy myself with blowing you two up!"

Rocket's smirk dropped like a rock as a surge of panic exploded through him. Without even thinking, he let it do the talking for him.

"Okay, okay! You're right! I did cheat!" He shouted at the screen and mentally crossed his fingers it would work. When Kanjar Ro didn't immediately kill them, he knew it did.

Kanja Ro still looked pretty pissed though so Rocket decided to lay it on thicker.

"I knew I couldn't beat you. I had no choice but to cheat!"

Kanjar Ro eased back into his seat, a smug smile starting to creep up to the corner of his mouth. "Is that so?"

"Kanjar," Rocket's voice took an even more desperate note. "You got me by the nuts here, I'm not crazy enough to lie to you."

Ro looked pretty smug from that and boy did it the look of it kill any chance of a good nights sleep for the next three weeks. He was about to speak up again when a specific pinging icon showed up on the computer. The one connected to the surprise Groot just armed.

Putting his best game face on, Rocket stomped a smug grin of his own and decided to keep the act up just a bit longer.

"Which is why I'm about to tell you this, pal. I'm not usually one for reading unless it's about guns or explosives, but you inspired me like nobody else. For the first and only time in my life, I picked up a dictionary and read the entire thing from page 1 to page 100,000," Ro was looking mighty confused by this point. "Because I wanted, no, needed to find some word in some language that describes just how an eye gouging, nightmarishly grotesque a disgusting son of a bitch like you looks!"

While Ro blankly stared at him, Rocket toothily grinned and with a satisfying thud, flipped the switch to their secret surprise. The merc crew vanished from view as Rocket & Groot performed a risky randomized series of space jumps away from a proper lane.

Settling back in his seat, Rocket steeled himself as they jumped around the cosmos until finally settling down to conserve gas. Unfortunately, when you randomly space jump, you tend to end up in some pretty bad spots, like flying into a sun, a black hole, or in the case of Rocket and Groot, a giant asteroid field.

"%#&!"

"I AM GROOT!"

Clenching his teeth hard enough to hear something in his jaw crack, Rocket didn't waste a second to perform every trick, maneuver and tactic he knew to circumnavigate the hundreds of rocks barreling towards them. Dive bombs, barrel rolls, tight squeezes, opening fire, anything to give them a clear of the asteroid field. A dozen damage warnings were blaring on the console which Rocket pointedly ignored. As long as nothing hit their engines or depressed the insides, it was fine.

Or it would have been fine if they hadn't flown in the direction of an asteroid half the size of a moon, with no room to get clear of it in time.

"I am Groot..."

"Course I see it, I'm about to blow right through it!"

"I AM GROOT!"

"You don't think I can do it?! That's the most insulting thing you've said to me!

Angling the ship towards any existing crack or hole, Rocket pulled both firing triggers and shouted as his salvo smashed a tunnel through the asteroid. Either he'd get the satisfaction of proving Groot wrong, or go down loudly and blowing something up. In this mess of explosions, shouts and blaring alerts, the ring they found fell out of its box and started flying all over the ships insides.

Rocket didn't really care, even when it accidentally bonked him in the head, he was entirely focused on blowing up then navigating through the insides of the asteroid. More alerts warned of increasing structural damage with Rocket even find the left wing harder to control. None of them worried him quite as much as the warning they were about to run out of ammunition.

Once again, he was forced to do fancy flying tricks inside the asteroid tunnels, cringing every time he heard metal scraping against rock. A final two rocket volley emptied all they had left in them, blowing through a wall into what seemed a comfortably sized straight tunnel.

For a minute, Rocket and Groot both relaxed, thinking they'd both fly out the other side and hopefully out of the field period. It wasn't a surprise when they both cursed in five different languages when they were only half right. The end of the giant rock all around them and the field was coming up, an almost circle shaped hole which their ship had no chance of getting through.

"Groot,..." Rocket said to him from over his shoulder. "I'm gonna get us outta here. I'm not gonna let my stupid crap with Kanjar Ro kill us."

"I am Groot," He put a reassuring hand on Rocket's back instead of snapping at him or blaming him, making Rocket wonder just what he'd done to deserve a friend like this one. Not for the first time either.

Taking a deep breath, Rocket blocked absolutely everything else out. The pang of guilt, Groot, the blaring alerts, none of it mattered: fitting their scrap heap ship out through that hole mattered. As the asteroid spun and rotated around them, Rocket angled the ship alongside it, tilting it 90 degrees to the side at all times.

Somewhere in the back of his head, a grating voice told him both his wings would get snapped in half trying to get out. Leaving them stranded in the middle of nowhere in a best-case scenario. Rocket very pointedly told it to kiss his hairy ass. He did the same to a pair of alerts warning him of potentially crippling wing damage as he entered into the hole.

For agonizing minutes, he heard and blocked out the sound of metal twisting and breaking against the rock, even when a particularly nasty-sounding screech reverberated inside. He even ignored the ring still knocking around. But getting scared or worried was out of the question, powering on through alone would get them out of this mess he'd started.

Then, in his peripheral vision, he noticed a glow outside, a green one. The blaring alarms stopped immediately along with the scrapping metal. Instead, he heard rocks being smashed aside. Rocket didn't know what was happening or why, but he wasn't about to ask any questions, instead he increased speed and rammed right through the tunnel, only stopping to breathe when they finally left the asteroid belt.

The tension was finally gone, and with a long sigh, Rocket leaned back in his seat and just breathed. Somewhere behind Groot, the ring clanked against the ground one more time before stopping too.

"I am Groot..." He picked the ring up gingerly.

"What?" Rocket breathlessly asked.

"I am Groot!"

"The ring saved us?" He turned around and gave Groot his best skeptical look. "Seriously?"

"I am Groot!"

Rocket snatched it out of his shaking hand and scrutinized it some. Just like before, he couldn't see anything special about it, certainly no button or mechanism to make an energy field.

"You sure you weren't seeing things again?" Rocket laughed and put it back in the box then went back to the main console to see just how screwed the ship was. Behind him, Groot puffed indignantly.

"I am Groot!"

"Sure pal, the ring saved us because magic and you've got a secret society of smart trees all over the galaxy!"

"I am Groot..." He grumbled in the back, crossing his arms. Rocket just laughed and went more important business, like fixing the ships, getting paid and hoping they'd have any cash left by the time it was all said and done.

* * *

 **This was just a little writing exercise during the summer break, rest assured, once the heat dies down, the adventures of Batman & Cap along with many others will continue.**


	9. Sentinels and Knights Part 7

"Uuugggghhhhh..."

"Easy, Rogers."

"B-Batman?" Steve moaned, recognizing the man's gadget altered voice even through the grating buzzing in his ear. Both of his eyes were messed up, blurry, but the left one wouldn't open all the way, it took his tired brain a second to figure out it obviously had a lump growing there. "W-where-"

"One of my safehouses, don't try to move, your injuries are in a delicate state now and Beagle wouldn't take well to you bleeding over more of his nice, usually clean floor."

Steve almost chuckled but stopped himself. He tried to get a feel for the rest of his body but it all felt sort of... numb, and floaty. Whatever Batman was pumping into him, it was pretty damn strong. Memories of the fight flooded back, a brick shoved in his eye, something in his spine cracking in a way that couldn't have been good... But most important of all was the man who did it to him.

Willing himself to stay awake, Steve licked his lips and looked at the blurry black thing that must've been Batman. "That guy... Who was he...?"

"Someone you'll about soon enough, for the time being, I suggest you sleep while you still can."

Before he could try arguing against it, the black blur vanished without a sound. For a little while longer, Steve just lied there, breathing, listening to the beeping noise of a machine he must've been hooked up to. But the sound he heard while he fell back asleep wasn't from that, it was the screeching of bats somewhere above him.

* * *

"He's still calling, sir."

"Of course he is," Batman drawled as he slid into the main seat of the Bat-computer a short walks away from the medical bay. With a scowl across his face matching the one built into the cowl, he observed footage of the car pursuit, Deathstroke battle and any potentially relevant news footage of either one playing on a multitude of tabs across the massive screen before him. Some sped up, others deliberately slowed down.

It was a long applied practice of his, a very successful one that'd helped him solve more than several hundred cases. It was also something he did to pass the time, to keep his mind busy when he was feeling restless,... or nostalgic if you subscribed to Alfred's ways of thinking. This time, however, none of it provided anything worthwhile and it most certainly didn't help the foul mood hanging over him since the night before.

The fact Nicholas Joseph Fury, a decorated officer of the United States Army, a veteran of the Cold War era CIA, current Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and all around manipulative, lying bastard on top of his shit list as Jason called it was purposefully trying to talk with him. A conversation Bruce couldn't ignore, not unless he wanted to make an already problematic situation potentially worse.

He and the rest of Gotham knew full well what came of S.H.I.E.L.D. involvement here, he didn't doubt for a single second that Fury was somehow responsible for the Chitauri invasion which facilitated the presence of these weapons. It wouldn't be the first time he and his organization played with aliens. Though it pained him to admit, however, Batman knew this was something of an exceptional situation, this concerned Captain America and the possibility of him being dead.

The footage of the battle, what little of it was there, certainly didn't paint a promising picture, showing the leader of the Avengers and worlds first superhero, the one they know about, anyway, beaten down and rescued by the Batman, in broad daylight. If Fury or his superiors didn't receive some kind of assurance, who knew how they would respond to this. If they brought down the rest of the Avengers to Gotham,... The very thought sent a cold chill down Batman's spine.

With a slow, deliberate exhale of air, Batman went to the computer and through hundreds of secure communication channels designed to stump that insufferable moron Stark, he began connecting the Bat-computer to Fury's own, encrypted call. As the process completed itself, Batman tried very, very hard not to glance over at Robin's display case nearby lest his temper get the better of him.

"Batman," Fury said in a voice masterfully casually and commanding all at once. "Been a long time."

"He's alive, stay out of Gotham."

"Not good enough, I wanna hear from him personally."

"You'll get a recording of our conversation just now, that should be enough for you and that cabal you answer to."

Fury let out a long, controlled sigh. "Do you have a lead on these guys?"

"I will, before tomorrow morning, this ends," He sent Fury the recording kept by the cowl, useful for picking and going over chatty crook conversations when they couldn't shut up on stakeouts or during fights.

"You better be right about that, otherwise we'll have a bigger problem on our hands."

"I agree, it will be very problematic for you if more people dead in my city from your mistakes."

He finished the call, not bothering to waste a second more on Fury, the assurance was sent, now it was time to find a lead, any single one to end this before Slade struck again. The footage was the first step, piggybacking off of street cameras used by city officials, Batman tried following the bank robbers from the moment Rogers started pursuit until past the point Slade intercepted him. It hadn't worked before, the perps had some kind of technology which made the cameras fizzle out when they approached.

However, being attacked by Captain America all of a sudden made them afraid, and fearful idiots make mistakes, like not shortening out the street cams as they were supposed to. Even after Rogers and Slade started fighting, giving them ample time to recognize their mistake, it was too late even if they didn't know it yet. From the ways, they drove through and the intended direction, all signs pointed to the docks on the east end of Gotham.

It was a good start, but not nearly good enough. The docks were a vast web of dilapidated buildings, abandoned warehouses, run down ship construction sites, even with this rough idea of their whereabouts, it left hundreds of place for them to hide in.

But Ras wouldn't call him Detective if he gave up so quickly.

Rogers' intervention provided another clue: the Freeze Blast. Almost a lifetime ago, he and Victor had cataloged much of the technology and its functions. Though the Freeze Blast was never completed, there was little reason to doubt it would've functioned similarly to the rest of Victors old Mister Freeze tech.

Utilizing a specially built, heat resistant, subarctic temperatures generating suit, Victor's weaponry were directly tied to or in some cases, built into it. They needed to be, the cold generated contained or generated inside them could only be sustained by linking it to another, comparable source.

Once detached or removed, they only had enough power to last maybe an hour on their own and that was if you weren't using it. Victor intended to rectify this mistake by installing portable power generators so he wouldn't have to waste precious cold power running all of this but thankfully, they'd cured him before that particular feature was installed.

This meant the crooks needed to keep these Freeze Blasts in storage relatively close by, around half an hours drive to and back whatever target they picked if they didn't want it to run out. The storage itself would need to be specially equipped with containers capable of keeping such cold temperatures active at all times.

Taking all of these parameters into account, Batman put the data into the Bat-computer and watched as a massive, multi-layered map of Gotham city progressively shrank to the one place meeting all of these criteria: the Birds Nest Warehouse.

Penguin used it to store vast amounts of ice shipped over to Gotham he used for the Iceberg Lounge's various assortment of ice-related statues and decorations. All of them taken from the Arctic and other freezing places around the world. Though, with that lung cancer bothering him, the place was basically abandoned, as so much of Penguin's holdings were.

That was one part of the problem solved, but the other,...

The lift to the cave suddenly whooshed upward and promptly came back down with Alfred and a tray of food and coffee coming back with it. He crossed the distance between them with his usual, army rhythmic pace and placed the tray near the keyboard.

"Thanks," He said, drinking almost all of the coffee at once. All this talk of cold and ice made the warm taste all the sweeter.

"I assumed you'd need it, extra strong too, I suspect I won't be seeing you in bed until tomorrow at the earliest."

"Like I told Fury, this ends tonight."

"You don't sound too sure of that."

He sent a sideways glance which Alfred answered with a raised eyebrow, daring him to refute that. Instead, Batman sighed, leaning back into the seat.

"You're right, the situation is more complicated than I anticipated."

"Because of Slade Wilson."

"Right, his involvement clearly indicates something larger at work here. It takes a lot of money and knowledge to hire him, meaning these crooks have wronged someone powerful."

"Someone who potentially has other weapons of alien persuasion at their disposal?"

He grunted affirmatively. "Slade won't talk, no matter what I do to him in the highly unlikely event I could capture him long enough for an interrogation."

"Perhaps you might with master Rogers here to help you."

"Rogers is the other problem," Batman finished off the coffee and went for the sandwich next. "His abilities are incredible, even his healing rate is substantially faster than I ever could have imagined. By ten o'clock, he could already be back on his feet. Doesn't change the fact he might be a liability for me."

"His performance against Deathstroke was-"

"Pathetic, the greatest hero the world has ever known taken apart like any other common street thug," Batman chewed the sandwich down with a grimace. "If I bring him along, he's liable to get killed or become a hostage."

"And yet if you somehow keep him here, you may lose regardless."

He grunted affirmatively again. "I've been in a similar spot before with Slade, remember the night just before I met Jason?"

"Yes, as I recall, Deathstroke was hired by Black Mask to bring down an operation of the Spider. You both just so happened to arrive there at the same time and I had to spend the rest of the night stitching up a particularly ghastly looking sword slash across your back."

"That was just me, Slade and the Spiders goon, regular weapons, Slade's sword notwithstanding and I almost got killed."

"Now you'll have to do it again with alien weaponry and a super soldier thrown into the mix," Alfred tsk'd. "Yes, quite a situation we've found ourselves in this time, sir."

"There's a solution for it," Batman said, his grimace somehow getting worse as he tapped several keys on the board. The map of Gotham vanished, switching over to footage of Roger's fight with Deathstroke. "See for yourself."

Alfred adjusted his glasses, leaning over to the tab and examining it looping over, and over again. His eyes momentarily narrowed before widening. "Bugger me," He whispered, pulling back and glancing between it and Bruce next to him. "Can this be?"

"It is, Rogers saw me perform that move, only saw it, and was able to perform a backward jump kick with perfect accuracy."

"This goes beyond simple photographic memory, sir,..."

"This is the realm of the superhuman, the ability to watch and copy movements, executing them with the trained ease of a master without practice,... I can see why some many people wanted to make more of him..."

"So," Alfred said, his gaping mouth shifting over to a smirk. "What you're telling me is-"

"Yes, Alfred," Batman sighed, willing himself to not even glance at the display case nearby again. "I'm going to train Captain America."

* * *

 **A/N: You guys didn't think I'd forgotten about this, did you?**


End file.
